Detainees held for nearly six years at the Guantanamo Bay military prison got another hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday, but the justices appeared to remain divided about whether the prisoners deserve a more basic right to challenge their imprisonment before a judge.
At issue is whether the detainees have a constitutional guarantee of the writ of habeas corpus, the ability to try to prove before an independent judge that they are unlawfully held. If so, the court faces the question of whether the alternative military tribunals created by the Bush administration and Congress -- which provide a limited role for the federal courts -- are an adequate substitute.
It is a case that raises profound questions of the separation of powers and the role of the federal courts during wartime. The scene at the court was befitting of such a moment: Protesters in orange jumpsuits demonstrated outside against Bush administration policies, and more than 70 people spent the night in line to get a place in the courtroom...
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"Seth Waxman, who held Clement's job as the government's top lawyer before the court during the Clinton administration and now represents the detainees, said procedures established by the president and Congress include "Kafka-esque" rules. The proceedings thwart the goal of determining which of the approximately 300 men held at Guantanamo are legitimate enemies of the United States and which were innocently swept up in the rush to protect the country from terrorism, he said.
A fundamental quality of habeas proceedings is speed, he said.
"These 37 men," Waxman said, referring to the specific plaintiffs in the two cases, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States,"have been held in isolation for nearly six years."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120500257.html?hpid=topnews
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