Amnesty International Pleads with Supreme Court to Uphold Prisoners' Rights to Habeas Corpus
The United States' Highest Court Today Began Hearing the Case that Appeals for 37 Guantanamo Bay Detainees
"The right to challenge one's detention is not a technical nicety; it is a basic safeguard against government abuse. This is a crucial moment for the rule of law and human rights, as the key questions before the Court are not only about the rights of detainees but the very basic foundations of an accountable government...The Supreme Court has twice delivered the message to the Bush administration that judicial review and civil liberties cannot be discarded. Yet President Bush continues to operate in a bubble where even such rulings can be manipulated to continue avoiding and delaying justice," said Amnesty International USA's executive director Larry Cox.
On June 29th of last year, in a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that President Bush went beyond his authority when he set up military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees, and that the tribunals violate U.S. laws as well as the international Geneva Conventions.
Civil liberties groups as well as military lawyers had opposed the President's post-September of 2001 tribunals from the beginning.
The current case before the Court centers on whether or not prisoners of war who are suspected terrorists have recourse to writs of habeas corpus, whereby they would have the right to challenge their detentions in international courts. Some of the detainees in question have been locked up for six years. The Bush Administration's lawyers contend that rights of habeas corpus are not guaranteed to wartime prisoners who are detained outside of U.S. territory. Guantanamo Bay is leased by the United States from Cuba, and has been so leased for 104 years. There are 300 detainees there. Justice Anthony Kennedy opined with the majority in a 6-3 Court ruling in 2004 that Guantanamo is, for all intents and purposes, U.S. territory.
In a long debate on Wednesday, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "They say they have been unlawfully detained for six years. And isn't that delay relevant to the question of whether they have been provided such a wonderful set of procedures?"
"Just give me one case. There's not a single one in all of this lengthy history," said Justice Antonin Scalia, in asking the 37 detainees' lawyer to demonstrate when even one non-American or non-English prisoner of war who was not detained on United States or English soil had ever been granted a habeas corpus petition.
The writ was conceived of by the English Parliament in the 1300s.
"Justice Kennedy said it most clearly when he said, in every practical respect, Guantanamo Bay is U.S. territory. And whatever Congress recently passed, they can't, as you point out, change the terms of the lease," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the detainees' lawyer.
Original Newswire Source:
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Published by Brant McLaughlin
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2 Comments
Post a CommentIn fact everyone in USA has a right to move Habeas Corpus. Its ingrained/ funaamental.
It has been gravely abused paryicularly against colouredf peoplke and Etyhnic WHITES by Right Wing Racists and KuKluxKlan and p;ompous Patronage-appointred judges mostly sympathizers of the Right wing think.
As an American By Choice, I reject interference with Fundamental Constitutional Rights.
Syyed Iqbal Jafree MA illinois LLM Harvard PhjD Read PhD Guru Nanakl Dev Univ HonLLD FRSA PC
Admitted in Pakistan 1959 + USA 1972
As far as I know U.S. citizens have the right of Habeas Corpus, but I could be wrong. However, it does not mean that you should hold people indefinatley without a trial and some sort of oversight.