Where democracy dies

When the Cincinnati-based federal appeals court ruled that secret immigration hearings are unconstitutional, it laced its opinion with powerful language about American democracy, like the quote above.

Circuit Judge Damon J. Keith's 54-page decision is a gold mine of quotable phrases denouncing official secrecy. Perhaps the most succinct: "Democracies die behind closed doors."

The court used this high-powered prose to make a compelling argument on behalf of open courts, even courts that exist to conduct administrative proceedings to determine whether immigrants should be deported.

For the same reasons that trial and appellate courts are open to the public, the court said, immigration courts must be open so that the American people may judge for themselves whether the process works as it should.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has effectively transformed the immigration courts into secret tribunals, before which foreign citizens may be brought in total secrecy, some with no lawyer to defend their interests, judged guilty and banished from this country.

The three-judge panel unanimously found that repugnant to the Constitution and to the very idea upon which America was founded. Here is why: If the government is free to conduct such important business as deportation hearings in secret, there is no way for the American people to know whether the proceedings are fair.