3/25/2008 3:33:29 PM Dealing a setback to President George Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that he does not have the “unilateral authority” to force state officials to comply with international treaties.
Considering a case in which Bush asked the state of Texas to reopen the case of Mexican-born murderer Jose Ernesto Medellin, who was sentenced to death, Chief Justice John G. Roberts said the Constitution gives the president the power “to execute the laws, not to make them.”
Bush ordered Texas to comply with a ruling by the International Court of Justice that the U.S. had failed to carry out its treaty duty to inform a native country when one of its citizens was arrested and charged with a serious crime.
But on Tuesday, favoring the Texas prosecutors, the Supreme Court justices decided 6-3 that Bush had overstepped his authority.
Roberts said the Vienna Convention was not “binding federal law” because Congress had not passed a law to enforce it.
clipped from: www.rttnews.com