Reform advocates for habeas

The Reform movement is joining a coalition calling for the repeal of a law that removes habeas corpus in some cases. Reform’s Religious Action Center said Tuesday that it would join a number of civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International USA, in a lobbying day June 26 against the Military Commissions Act, passed last year by a Republican-led Congress. The act allows the president to detain a terrorism suspect in some cases without judicial review. RAC said in a statement that the legislation was ” was “an assault on the most valued aspects of our U.S. judicial system, including the writ of habeas corpus,” the obligation of the government to explain detentions to a judge, as well as “an assault on the Jewish teaching that all humanity is created b’tselem elohim – in the image of God – and thus entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”