To be honest I do not know enough about the details to be sure this is really significant, but it seems that way to me. Someone (MobBoss?) can tell us if it is as important as this articale makes out;
from New York Times
And some more from my new favourate news outlet (hope it works, I have not tried this before)
from New York Times
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, June 4 A military judge here dismissed the war crimes charges against a Canadian detainee today, saying there was a flaw in the procedure the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees.
The ruling in the case of the Canadian, Omar Khadr, is likely to stall the militarys war crimes prosecutions here. Critics of the prosecutions immediately called for Congress to reexamine the system it set up last year for military commissions to try detainees.
The military judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army, said that Congress authorized the tribunals to try only those detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants. But the military authorities here, he said, have determined only that Mr. Khadr was an enemy combatant, without making the added determination that his participation was unlawful.
Military lawyers here said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here. The ruling, the latest in a history of legal setbacks for the governments effort to bring war-crimes charges against detainees, appeared to raise far-reaching questions, because it involved central principles of detention procedures.
Under directives from President Bush and senior Defense Department officials, military officials here have held detainees after finding simply that they were enemy combatants.
Those procedures have long drawn criticism, with some opponents of administration policies saying that they appeared to ignore principles of the international law of war, which permits the violence of battle without classifying it a war crime.
...
A person has a right to be tried only by a court which he knows has jurisdiction over him, the judge said from the bench in the military courtroom at the United States naval base here.
The chief military defense lawyer here, Col. Dwight Sullivan of the Marines, said he viewed the decision as having broad impact, because it underscored what he and other critics have described as a commission process that lacks international legitimacy and legal authority.
And some more from my new favourate news outlet (hope it works, I have not tried this before)