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| Legal battle on Guantanamo looms |
| The US Supreme Court is set to hold a hearing in two cases that are being seen as a legal showdown over the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 5-December-2007
10:1:42 AM |
| The cases challenge the removal by Congress of the "habeas corpus" right of detainees under the US constitution to be heard in a civilian court.
If the court rules in their favour, indefinite detention under military control could be declared unlawful.
The court's judges have ruled against the US government in two earlier cases.
The first concerned the status of Guantanamo Bay in relation to US territory.
In 2004, the judges found that existing law gave federal courts the right to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay because of the unique control the US government had over the land leased from Cuba.
Two years later, it ruled that the president did not have the authority to order the "enemy combatants" there to face military commissions.
The government responded both times by obtaining Congressional legislation restricting judicial review of the detentions.
The Military Commissions Act (MCA) passed in 2006 removed the right of habeas corpus and set up commissions to try detainees who were not US citizens.
'Unconstitutional'
Now the two test cases challenging the MCA brought by Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian arrested in Bosnia in 2001, and Fawzi al-Odah, a Kuwaiti seized in Pakistan in 2002, have been consolidated into one and brought on behalf of 37 foreign nationals who remain among the 305 detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Their lawyers argue that habeas corpus should extend to the facility even though it is technically not US sovereign territory.
"The founders of our nation created a constitution dedicated to the protection of liberty, not one that turns a blind eye to indefinite detention without a meaningful opportunity to be heard," one of the lawyers said in a brief on their behalf.
"The MCA's purported repeal of habeas is unconstitutional," he said.
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