Circuit Court orders end to detainee cases
on Feb 20, 2007 at 10:05 am
The D.C. Circuit Court on Tuesday ruled that Congress had taken away the federal courts’ authority to hear habeas challenges to the detention of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Court also ruled that this did not amount to an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The Court was divided 2-1 on the constitutional issue in its 59-page decision (which can now be found here).
The Court ordered the dismissal of two packets of appeals brought by detainees after two District Court judges ruled in conflicting ways on the legal rights of detainees. Since those cases arrived at the Circuit Court, however, Congress has moved twice to take away the authority of the U.S. courts to hear such challenges. The Supreme Court invalidated the first attempt. Tuesday’s ruling upheld the latest such effort, in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, enacted last October.
Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote the majority opinion, joined by Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle. Circuit Judge Judith W. Rogers dissented. While Rogers agreed that Congress did in fact intend to take away habeas jurisdiction for detainees captured anywhere in the world, she concluded that that was unconstitutional.
The Court declined to convert the habeas cases into challenges before the Circuit Court under the Detainee Treatment Act to the military decisions to hold the detainees, as the government had suggested. It did not decide whether it had authority to do so; instead, it found that the record in the case lacks sufficient information to perform the review under DTA. It thus said “our only recourse is to vacate the district courts’ decisions and dismiss the cases for lack of jurisdiction.”
A similar fate awaits scores of other cases brought by detainees at the Circuit Court and in District Courts in Washington, D.C. The dispute over the detainees’ legal fate is now expected to go on to the Supreme Court, joined by an attempt at a direct appeal by Salim Ahmed Hamdan in a separate case involving a detainee facing a war crimes trial. The decision Tuesday involved Guantanamo detainees who are not facing trials before military commissions; they have not been charged with any crimes but have been designated “enemy combatants” in the war on terrorism.
It seems very doubtful that any of the cases could reach the Supreme Court in time for any rulings during the current Term, unless any appeals were significantly expedited or unless a special hearing date were set beyond the final round of hearings scheduled now for April.
