-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 20, 2007 11:23:32 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P.
"Habeas corpus is a right that was enshrined in the Magna Carta to
prevent kings from indefinitely and arbitrarily detaining anyone
they chose. Today the Washington DC Court of Appeals has turned
the clock back on 900 years of progress -- it has restored the
'divine right' of kings for one man, President Bush.''
Court: No habeas corpus
for Guantánamo captives
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16740785.htm
Document | Read today's decision
The federal appeals panel in Washington, D.C., sided 2-1 with the
Bush administration today, upholding an act of Congress that
stripped Guantánamo Bay captives of the right to challenge their
detention in lower federal courts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia handed the
White House a key victory as it moves forward with plans to hold
war-crimes trials for at least three Guantánamo captives at the
remote Navy base in southeast Cuba.
It also sets the stage for an early decision on whether to
intervene by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has twice before sided
with the detainees.
Currently, three captives who have never been charged with crimes
-- a Yemeni, a Pakistani and a Chinese citizen of the Uighur
minority -- are asking the justices to consider their unlawful
detention lawsuits.
''Federal courts have no jurisdiction in these cases,'' declared
Judge A. Raymond Randolph for himself and Judge David B. Sentelle.
Two successive acts of Congress, they said, had sufficiently
stripped detainees of traditional recourse to the writ of habeas
corpus.
''The arguments are creative but not cogent. To accept them would
be to defy the will of Congress,'' Randolph wrote for the two men,
who were appointed to the court by Presidents Ronald Reagan and
George H.W. Bush.
The Republican-led Congress twice passed legislation that removed
so-called ''enemy combatants'' of their right to challenge their
detention without charge in U.S. civilian courts -- the Detainee
Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
The Defense Department, which holds 395 enemy combatants without
charge at Guantánamo, has declared its power to detain them for the
duration of the war on terrorism. Some have been held there for
five years.
The Pentagon prosecutor has said a portion -- perhaps 80 of them --
could be charged at Congress' newly created war-crimes court,
called a military commission.
He put three on notice of coming war-crimes charges -- David Hicks
of Australia, Omar Khadr of Canada and Salim Hamdan of Yemen.
Hamdan, who admits to working at one time as Osama bin Laden's
driver, earlier used his habeas corpus petition in federal court to
challenge his detention all the way to the Supreme Court, which
last year ruled as ''illegal'' an earlier war-crimes court.
Since then, Congress redesigned the court -- and stripped captives
like Hamdan of lower court review of their cases.
Judge Judith W. Rogers, a Clinton appointee, dissented, saying the
Pentagon had failed to create a fair substitute outside the federal
courts at which captives held without charge can challenge their
detention.
''While judgments of military necessity are entitled to deference
by the courts and while temporary custody during wartime may be
justified in order properly to process those who have been
captured,'' she said, ``the executive has had ample opportunity
during the past five years during which the detainees have been
held at Guantánamo Bay to determine who is being held and for what
reason.''
The court ruled even as members of the Democratic-led Congress are
crafting new detainee legislation to restore the civilian courts'
jurisdiction in such cases and to more narrowly define an enemy
combatant.
In New York, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed
suits on behalf of many of the prisoners, issued a condemnation of
the ruling.
''This decision empowers the president to do whatever he wishes to
prisoners without any legal limitation as long as he does it off
shore,'' said Shayana Kadidal, managing attorney of the Center for
Constitutional Rights Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative.
Added CCR executive director Vincent Warren: ``Habeas corpus is a
right that was enshrined in the Magna Carta to prevent kings from
indefinitely and arbitrarily detaining anyone they chose. The
combined actions of the Bush administration, the previous Congress
and two of the three judges today have taken us back 900 years and
granted the right of kings to the president.''
The Justice Department hailed the decision ``upholding the
constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act and dismissing
the consolidated Guantánamo detainee cases for lack of jurisdiction.''
Spokesman Erik Ablin said it ''reaffirms the validity of the
framework that Congress established'' -- which has military, not
civilian courts, review Guantánamo captives' detention and let the
detainee challenge only that review at the appeals court.
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