The Cuban Five and the US Supreme Court | Dissident Voice

21.8.11

The Cuban Five and the US Supreme Court | Dissident Voice: Talking about Supreme Court, how about a little history. On June 15, 2009 the US Supreme Court announced its decision to reject the request for a revision of the Cuban Five case. This demand for a review was carried out by millions of people from all walks of life around the world, a record number of “Friends of the Court” petitions and thousands of personalities and elected officials from every continent. Many of these pleas also came from within the USA itself.



The US brags about its political systems as being based on the separation of powers between the Executive (President and Vice-President), the Legislature and the Judiciary and a resulting built-in checks and balances system. This is supposedly a superior form of democracy based on checks and balances to avoid abuse of power by one or the other of the three branches forming the US government. In the US Constitution Article II Section 2 states that the US president has “the power to grant reprieves and pardons…” Every indication is that President Obama, far from using his constitutional powers to free the Cuban Five, made it clear to the Supreme Court judges that they should rule against revision.1