the supreme court finally gets into the game
this story from reuters [full text below, when the link breaks] is the first hint i’ve had that the third branch of our american government will actually participate in the political evolution of our new endless war.
two years of justice delayed is justice denied. it’s about time.
will we stop compromising our principles in an ill-advised frenzy to make ourselves secure? if we don’t, what have we secured?
US court to hear Guantanamo appeals
Mon 10 November, 2003 16:42
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court says it will decide appeals by Afghan war detainees challenging their incarceration at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first time the justices will rule on the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policy.
The justices agreed to decide whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction to consider the challenges by a group of detainees of their continued confinement without access to families or lawyers, and with no charges brought against them.
The Supreme Court will hear an hour of arguments next year, setting the stage for a decision by the end of June.
The justices said in a written order on Monday they would decide whether U.S. “courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.”
The high court agreed to hear appeals by two British, two Australian and 12 Kuwaiti nationals. They are among about 660 detainees from more than 40 nations at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba following their capture during the war in Afghanistan.
Washington considers the detainees enemy combatants, not prisoners of war entitled to specific protections under international law. The United States has so far identified only a handful of detainees it considers eligible for military tribunals.
The detainees were seized during the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and against Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The first detainees arrived at Guantanamo in January 2002.
CITING INTERNATIONAL LAW
Attorneys for the 16 foreign nationals argued that the U.S. Constitution and international law forbade indefinite detention without providing the prisoners certain protections.
The British and Australian detainees sought their release from what they called their “unlawful custody” and asked for a court order requiring the military to allow their lawyers to confer with them in private.
The Kuwaitis sought a court order allowing them to meet with their families, be told of any charges against them, consult with their lawyers and have access to courts or some other impartial tribunal.
A federal judge had dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds that the military base was outside U.S. sovereign territory and that writs of habeas corpus were unavailable to aliens outside U.S. territory.
A U.S. appeals court agreed. It ruled the detainees cannot seek their release for violations of the U.S. Constitution, treaties or federal law and said the detainees could not bring the challenges in U.S. courts.
Appealing on behalf of the British and Australians, Michael Ratner of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights said, “Every imprisoned person should have the right to test the legality of their detention.”
“The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law,” lawyers for those detainees told the Supreme Court in one appeal.
In the other appeal, for the Kuwaitis, lawyers said the case raised “questions that test the character of our standing in the world community.”
A group of former U.S. federal judges, diplomats, military officials and human rights advocates all supported the appeals and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The U.S. Justice Department defended its policies.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson said the appeals should be rejected. He argued the detainees cannot invoke U.S. court jurisdiction to challenge the legality of their detention by the military at Guantanamo.