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After Gitmo Ruling, What Next for Detainees? | Newsweek National News | Newsweek.com

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's polarizing Guantánamo Bay policies Thursday, giving the roughly 300 foreign terror suspects being held there the right to challenge their detention through the U.S. civilian court system. In a 5-4 ruling on the jointly decided cases Boumediene v. Bush and Al-Odah v. The United States, the nation's highest court determined that the detainees have a constitutional right to habeas corpus despite their detention outside the borders of the United States. Further, the justices rejected the administration's argument that the reviews provided through the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 were adequate substitutes for that right.

Also announced was the court's decision on the cases of Shawqui Omar and Mohammad Munaf, Americans detained on terrorism-related charges in Iraq who similarly argued for habeas corpus and challenged their pending transfer to Iraqi authorities. While the justices likewise upheld their habeas rights, they unanimously ruled that Iraq has jurisdiction over those within their borders.

Jonathan Hafetz: It's a vindication of the basic principle that government cannot deprive individuals of habeas corpus when it detains them merely by holding them outside the United States. It's a real vindication for the Guantánamo detainees to finally have their day in court and for the rule of law. It also has implications for the military commissions, because if the Constitution applies, then all the people who have been charged before the commissions are going to be able to contend that the commissions have to satisfy the Constitution, which they haven't been able to do so far.

Labels: Constitutional attacks, Gitmo, Supreme Court, Terrorism, Torture