This is a huge decision and defeat for the Bush administration. M
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2008
Supreme Court rules Guantanamo prisoners have right to sue in U.S. courts
Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 12, 2008 11:17:37 AM
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McClatchy Washington Bureau | 06/12/2008 | Supreme Court rules Guantanamo prisoners have right to sue in U.S. courts
WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their extended imprisonment in federal court, and struck down as inadequate an alternative review system set up by Congress.
Repudiating a key tenet of the Bush administration’s war-on-terror policy, the court’s 5-4 majority concluded the foreigners held in Guantanamo Bay retain the same habeas corpus rights as U.S. residents.
“Some of these petitioners have been in custody for the past six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “Their access to the writ is necessary to determine the lawfulness of their status, even if, in the end, they do not obtain the relief they seek.”
The court’s long-awaited ruling in the combined cases known as Boumediene v. Bush and Al-Odah v. United States is the latest in a string of judicial defeats for the Bush administration, which has sought to exclude foreign prisoners from traditional legal protections. The ruling also marks the first time in U.S. history that constitutional habeas corpus rights have been extended to alien fighters captured overseas.
The court’s conservative wing, including Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, at times with sharp words of their own.
“The nation will live to regret what the court has done today,” Scalia wrote.
Algerian native Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, Kuwaiti native Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah and the other detainees were seized abroad and have never been held on the U.S. mainland. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo Bay detainees had a right to habeas corpus under a statute passed by Congress. Congress responded with a 2005 law that stripped federal courts of their jurisdiction, thereby blocking further habeas petitions. The Supreme Court then ruled that the 2005 law didn't apply retroactively to Guantanamo Bay petitions that had already been filed.
Congress returned with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, blocking all Guantanamo Bay habeas corpus cases.
In Latin, habeas corpus means "produce the body.” A legal principle dating back centuries, it enables prisoners to demand in court the legal justification and factual basis for their detention.
The Bush administration contended the men don't enjoy habeas corpus rights because they're foreigners and not imprisoned on U.S. soil. The United States has leased the 45-square-mile Guantanamo Bay property from Cuba since 1903. The court’s majority didn’t buy the argument.