WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2007
Will Habeus Corpus Be Declared Dead?
Supreme Court To Hear Arguments U.S. Can Hold Detainees For Years In "Prisons Beyond The Law"
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The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to determine whether Guantanamo detainees can use U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment under an age-old right known as habeas corpus. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
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Interactive Gitmo Tribunals Detainees on trial, photos and a history of the naval base.
Instead of freedom, however, they got a trip to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were branded enemy combatants by the Bush administration and have been held since. They have not been charged with a crime.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the Algerians and about 300 other prisoners at Guantanamo can go to U.S. courts to challenge their confinement. Just three detainees are facing charges at the moment, although Pentagon officials have talked about eventually holding military trials for 60 to 80 prisoners.
The prisoners want the justices to order prompt court hearings, considering the length of their detention so far.
The cases to be argued Wednesday mark the third time that the Supreme Court has examined the rights of the detainees. Twice before, the court has ruled against the administration. Each time the U.S. Congress and the White House have changed the law in an effort to keep the Guantanamo prisoners from contesting their detention before American judges.
The indefinite detentions have become a focal point of international criticism of the administration's fight against terrorism, with increasing calls for closing the Guantanamo facility.
The administration is mounting a vigorous defense of its detention policies.
In a court filing, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer says the cells at Guantanamo hold people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks or with ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban who formerly ruled Afghanistan. Moreover, the detainees "enjoy more procedural protections than any other captured enemy combatants in the history of warfare," Solicitor General Paul Clement says.
Despite the prisoners' six years of confinement, Clement says the justices should not upset the detainees' classification as enemy combatants "at this preliminary stage," even if the court rules that the detainees can be heard in U.S. courts.
The case turns on the reach of the writ of habeas corpus. The centuries-old legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.
The government says foreigners held outside the United States have no constitutional rights and that Congress has stripped federal courts of jurisdiction in the detainee cases.
Even if the detainees have rights, the procedures put in place to review their status as enemy combatants are adequate, Clement says.
The case has attracted 26 court filings on behalf of the detainees. Among those weighing in are Canadian and European lawmakers; former U.S. judges, diplomats and military officers; Israeli law professors; human rights organizations; liberal interest groups; the libertarian Cato Institute; and Republican Senator Arlen Specter.
Four legal briefs, from retired military officers, national security organizations and conservative public interest law firms, are supporting the administration.
Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer for the detainees, said the case tests "whether the U.S. can establish lawless enclaves, prisons beyond the law."
The detainees' lawyers say most were not seized on a battlefield, but rather were handed over by local warlords in Afghanistan and Pakistan for large bounties. Others, like those in Bosnia, were picked up far from the fighting in Afghanistan.
They were moved to the U.S. base in Cuba beginning in early 2002, a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The justices initially turned down the detainees' latest appeal, but reversed course in June. They provided no explanation. But their action followed a declaration from a military officer who alleged the U.S. military panels that classified detainees as enemy combatants for the past four years relied on vague and incomplete intelligence.
The detainees' lawyers feel good about their chances at the Supreme Court because five of the nine justices must agree to take a case that previously has been denied a hearing. Ordinarily, just four justices must vote to hear a case.
Attached to the Algerian-Bosnian detainees' appeal are excerpts from the review panel that considered whether one of them, Mustafa Ait Idir, had been properly classified an enemy combatant.
The government said Idir associated "with a known al Qaeda operative" and planned to attack the embassy. He was not given the name of the operative or any evidence linking him to the plot.
"If a supervisor came to me and showed me accusations like these, I would take these accusations and I would hit him in the face with them," he said, interrupted by laughter from everyone in the room, according to the transcript. "Why? Because these are accusations that I can't even answer."
The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. U.S., 06-1196.
By Mark Sherman
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"The Habeas Corpus secures every man, alien or citizen, against everything which is not law, whatever shape it may assume." --Thomas Jefferson, 1798. ME 10:61
"Enemy combatant" has no legal standing. It is a construction of the Bush fascist legal maneuvers to suborn the law and Constitution. Today any American can be declared an "Enemy Combatant" by DECREE of the President. The position of this dictator is that NO ONE CAN contest this Presidential decree. No Court. No Congress. We have truly come full circle to the monarchy that our founders fought so hard to throw off.
The monkeys, the lemmings, and their mindless hordes will applaud and claim it to be a great day. America will deserve the blackness that these mindless thugs drag it down into. Those who oppose it will deserve the darkness no less because of their own silence.
The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort."
- President John F. Kennedy, January 29, 1961
www.a-human-right.com
and I didn''t speak up because I wasn''t a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn''t speak up because I wasn''t Jewish.
Then they came for the trade unionist,
and I didn''t speak up because I wasn''t a trade
unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn''t speak up because I was a Protestant,
Then they came for the homosexuals,
and I didn''t speak up because I wasn''t a homosexual,
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one left to speak for
me."
-- Rev. Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor
It''s a stupid question. 5 is greater than 4.
With the Supreme Court stacked the way it is, there is no mystery about the outcome of this hearing.
Or anything else that comes before the Court, for that matter.
And when trust goes, any perceived moral obligation to respect or obey the law quickly follow.