JACL Applauds Supreme Court Decision to Restore Detainees' Right to Habeas Corpus
APA leaders liken the weakening of Constitutional rights to the JA WWII internment experience.
The JACL is commending the Supreme Court's June 12 ruling to restore Guantanamo Bay detainees' Constitutional right to habeas corpus. The civil rights group calls it a huge step toward restoring a basic tenet of due process.
In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
JACL leaders liken the weakening of habeas corpus rights to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
"This right was at the core of the World War II incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans, who were stripped of their due process rights and detained for years in America's concentration camps," said Floyd Mori, JACL national director.
The administration opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants, people suspected of ties to al-Qaida or the Taliban. Since then, it has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and reports of aggressive interrogations.
Habeas corpus is a centuries-old legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, that allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.
The administration had long argued that the detainees have no rights and that the system and review process put into place to classify a detainee as an enemy combatant are sufficient substitutes for civilian court hearings.
Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The JACL has continually opposed legislative and administrative attempts to curtail or weaken the right of habeas corpus.
"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy on behalf of the court.
Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but that such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.
The ruling could resurrect many detainee lawsuits that federal judges put on hold pending the outcome of the high court case.
In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also dissented. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy to form the majority.
The court has ruled twice previously that people held at Guantanamo without charges can go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. Each time, the administration and Congress changed the law to try to close the courthouse doors to the detainees.
The court specifically struck down a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denies Guantanamo detainees the right to file petition of habeas corpus.
The head of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of prisoners at Guantanamo, also welcomed the ruling.
"The Supreme Court has finally brought an end to one of our nation's most egregious injustices," said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren. "By granting the writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court recognizes a rule of law established hundreds of years ago and essential to American jurisprudence since our nation's founding."
In addition to those held without charges, the U.S. has said it plans to try as many as 80 of the detainees in war crimes tribunals, which have not been held since WWII.
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