The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., set new precedent on Monday when it ruled that… The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., set new precedent on Monday when it ruled that the government does not have the right to declare civilians in the United States as “enemy combatants.”

The decision followed the case of Ali al-Marri, a Qatari citizen, who was detained as an “enemy combatant” in Charleston, S.C. According to a statement released by the Justice Department, al-Marri was trained at Osama bin Laden’s terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and entered the United States before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to serve as a sleeper agent for al-Qaeda.

The courts said that the government could charge al-Marri with a crime, deport him or hold him as a witness to a crime. But indefinitely keeping al-Marri, a civilian who had legally entered the United States, as an “enemy combatant” without rights was a violation of the Constitution.

This ruling is a rebuke of the Bush administration’s suspension of habeas corpus for aliens deemed “enemy combatants” during the “War on Terror.”

The ruling followed a military court’s dismissal last week of charges against two terrorism suspects designated only as “enemy combatants,” a symbolic criticism of the Bush administration’s system for trying suspected terrorists.

Senate Democrats are using the recent rulings as evidence for a need to pass new legislation restoring a detainee’s right to file habeas corpus suits. Congress passed a bill limiting the right last year.

Like the term “enemy combatants,” similar labels have been manipulated by other countries to suspend prisoners’ rights in the past, like the “subversives” during Argentina’s dictatorship. Jonathan Hafetz, one of al-Marri’s lawyers and the litigation director of the Liberty and National Security Project at New York University School of Law, told The New York Times that “this is exactly what separates a country that is democratic and committed to rule of law from a country that is a police state.”

Time after time, the Bush administration has used the unusual circumstances of the “War on Terror” as an excuse to stretch executive power and defy the accepted norms of civil rights for the accused protected by U.S. law. With this new legislation, the Democratic-controlled Congress is making efforts to check the executive power that they allowed to grow excessively with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act.

We’re glad to see that Congress is finally attempting to restore one of the laws most vital to our democracy. If we ever expect to show other countries that a free democracy is the best form of government, we must utilize the strengths of our justice system to try all suspected criminals, regardless of their citizenship.