More lawyer visits to detainees?
on May 11, 2007 at 11:20 am
The Pentagon has changed its proposal to limit the access of attorneys to detainees who are being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, striking out a proposed limit of three visits. The three-visit recommendation, a part of a government-proposed “protective order,” had drawn criticism not only from detainees’ lawyers, but also from lawyers’ professional responsibility experts and bar associations.
In papers filed Friday with the D.C. Circuit Court, in advance of a hearing there on Tuesday in two detainee cases, the government asked for permission to amend its proposed order. As originally proposed, the order would have provided that, once a detainee had agreed to have a lawyer represent him, the lawyer could visit the client at Guantanamo “a maximum of three additional times” while the D.C. Circuit reviews the military decision to continue to detain a client. That phrase was deleted from the new proposal, as was a phrase saying that the three-visit liit would apply at “all stages of review” by the D.C. Circuit. Before a client can be represented by a lawyer who would have access at Guantanamo, the detainee must sign a firn designating an attorney to be his counsel. The filings are here, here and here
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The Justice Department told the Court on Friday: “After further consideration of this issue by the Department of Defense, the respondent [Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates] is no longer seeking to incorporate a three-visit threshold for the number of counsel visits. Based on a current evaluation of resources and needs at Guantanamo, the respondent has determined that this provision is no longer warranted.”
No other changes were proposed in the order, although detainees’ counsel have challenged a number of other suggested provisions, including access to classified materials. The Justice Department told the Circuit Court that the Pentagon has concluded that the remainder of the proposed order continues to be “warranted and appropriate.”
In a second filing, the Department advised the Court of a new procedure laid out by the Pentagon for reviewing new evidence that a detainee seeks to offer, after he has had a review of his detention status by a “combatant status review tribunal” — a military panel that does not operate like a court. The new evidence can be submitted to the Pentagon headquarters, where officials will decide whether it justifies opening a new status review proceeding. The Pentagon said it was adopting the “new evidence” rule in order to satisfy a provision of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 saying that the military was to “provide for periodic review of any evidence that may become available relating to the enemy combatant status of a detainee.”
In submitting this document to the Circuit Court, the Justice Department said that this rule “further supports” the government’s argument to that Court that its review of a detainee’s status must be based upon the record of the CSRT but with new evidence “properly considered” by the Pentagon.
