Detainees' Case Heads to Supreme Court
Justices to weigh national security interests and Guantanamo captives' rights.
Dec. 3, 2007 — -- Wednesday, lawyers for President Bush will once again travel to the highest court in the land to debate the rights of detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The question of what to do with detainees captured on and off an unorthodox battlefield has provoked a raging controversy around the world.
At issue in the pending case before the Supreme Court is the allegation from about 50 detainees that the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 violates their right to challenge their detentions in federal courts.
The detainees claim that military hearings, sanctioned by the MCA as a substitute for hearings in federal court, are neither fair nor impartial. They argue that the current system strips them of proper legal representation, a neutral fact-finder and the ability to hear all the evidence against them.
The government counters in legal briefs that when Congress passed the MCA, it struck the necessary balance between the detainees' rights and the need to ensure "that those who have in fact fought with the enemy during a war do not return to battle against the United States."
The government argues that foreigners held outside the territory of the United States do not have due process rights guaranteed under the Constitution and stresses that the petitioners "enjoy more procedural protections than any other captured enemy combatants in the history of warfare."
The government says that the MCA affords detainees a "constitutionally adequate" substitution for having their claims heard in federal court.
But lawyers for the detainees contend in court filings that the detainees seek, "nothing more than a day in court to establish their innocence of any wrongdoing that might justify their detention — a hearing the government has fiercely fought to deny them for nearly six years."
Additionally, the lawyers argue "Guantanamo has become an international symbol of the Executive Branch's contempt for the rule of law and a deep stain on the reputation of the United States at home and abroad."
