Posted on 11/10/2003 1:15:12 PM PST by kkindt
US top court to decide Guantanamo cases Mon 10 November, 2003 19:37 RELATED ARTICLES Guantanamo prisoners' advocates hail Supreme Court
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court say it will decide whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first cases it will hear on the Bush administration's war on terror.
The justices agreed on Monday to rule on whether U.S. courts have the power to consider challenges by a group of Afghan war detainees to their continued confinement without access to families or lawyers, and with no charges brought against them.
The nation's high court will hear an hour of arguments in the spring, with a ruling due by July in a pair of cases that could decide the judiciary's role to review certain government's actions in the war on terror.
The justices said in a written order they would decide whether U.S. "courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."
The high court agreed to hear appeals by two British, two Australian and 12 Kuwaiti nationals. They are among about 660 detainees from more than 40 nations at the base in Cuba following their capture during the war in Afghanistan.
The detainees were seized during the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The first detainees arrived at Guantanamo in January 2002.
Washington considers the detainees enemy combatants, not prisoners of war entitled to specific protections under international law. The United States so far has identified only a handful of detainees to possibly face military tribunals.
Attorneys for the 16 foreign nationals argued that the U.S. Constitution and international law forbade indefinite detention without providing the prisoners certain protections.
Human rights groups welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeals.
'HUMAN RIGHTS SCANDAL'
"The treatment of the Guantanamo detainees is a human rights scandal which violates international law and damages U.S. claims to uphold the rule of law," Amnesty International said in a statement.
"We hope that the Supreme Court will bring an end to the legal black hole into which the Guantanamo detainees have been thrown and ensure justice for them and their families," it said.
Elisa Massimino of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights said, "The justices should use these cases to assert that the Guantanamo detainees have legal rights and a means to seek enforcement of those rights."
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds that the military base was outside U.S. sovereign territory and that writs of habeas corpus were unavailable to foreign nationals outside U.S. territory. A U.S. appeals court agreed.
Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the British and the Australians, said the case involved an important issue.
"One of the most fundamental democratic principles is at risk in this case: whether the government may detain people without charge and deny them the right to test the legality of their detention in open court," he said.
"The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law," lawyers for those detainees told the Supreme Court in one appeal.
In the other appeal, for the Kuwaitis, lawyers said the case raised "questions that test the character of our standing in the world community."
A group of former U.S. federal judges, diplomats, military officials and human rights advocates all supported the appeals and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The U.S. Justice Department defended the government's anti-terror policies.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson said the detainees cannot invoke U.S. court jurisdiction to challenge their detention, and he warned of the potential for judicial interference "with the core war powers of the president."
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The portion before the bold refers to the areas where the SC has original jurisdiction. The bold portion refers to the other cases previously mentioned - in Clause 1. The SC can have either original jurisdiction or appelate jurisdiction. Since this area is not mentioned in the area concerning original jurisdiction, it must be covered under the portion relating to appelate jurisdiction.
One would think that the SC cannot just reach out and hear the case without establishing its original jurisdictional claim.
Should be: "We just may see an impeachment of a Supreme Court Justice in our lifetime if they do."
The Senate won't let the Supreme Court rewrite treaties- which IMO they would have to do to have jurisdiction. Heck, I think most of the Justices are aware of that.
Congress has written no law to give unlawful combatants any standing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.