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Supreme
Court Hears Guantanamo Case |
Posted:04.21.04
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The Supreme Court has begun reviewing three important terrorism-related
cases that will determine whether foreign prisoners have the right
to a trial in U.S. courts and whether the government has the right
to detain U.S. citizens accused of working with terrorists without
a trial.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments on
Tuesday in a case that will determine whether foreign prisoners
being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba can be
tried by American courts.
 Tuesday's
hearing was the first of three separate cases -- two of which
will be heard on April 28 -- that will consider how the United
States has waged its war on terrorism. These first cases will
measure the civil liberties of war-time prisoners against the
need for national security.
"These cases raise fundamental questions about the role
of the courts in preserving civil liberties during times of national
crisis," said Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties
Union.
The U.S. military has been holding about 600 prisoners at Guantanamo
since early 2002. In efforts to capture members of the al-Qaida
network, believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks
that killed nearly 3,000 people, the United States battled Afghanistan's
Taliban government, catching many of the current prisoners.
Since then, the Bush administration has claimed the right to
hold the prisoners indefinitely, refusing them access to lawyers
and not charging them officially. The Department of Defense cites
the need to preserve security during war.
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The case
of foreign detainees |
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In Tuesday's case, the nine court justices reviewed a previous
ruling that said American courts do not have jurisdiction over
the legal claims of prisoners being held at Guantanamo. Because
the base is in the "sovereign territory of Cuba," prisoners
there would not fall under U.S. laws, according to a case decided
in 1950.
Lawyers for 16 British, Australian and Kuwaiti detainees argued
that the U.S. Constitution does not allow the government to create
a prison that falls outside the reaches of American courts and
that prisoners should have access to those courts to fight for
their release.
The federal government argued the earlier ruling, involving German
prisoners in U.S. custody during World War II, should be maintained,
or upheld. The government also argued that U.S. courts should
not interfere with the military and its trial procedures.
The United States plans at some point to try the men suspected
of being terrorists before a military tribunal and not a traditional
court.
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What is Guantanamo? |
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One of the main arguments the justices will have to decide is
who controls Guantanamo Bay.
The United States established the base at Guantanamo after the
Spanish-American War, getting the new government of Cuba to agree
to the base after driving Spanish forces off the island in the
early 1900s.
 Under
the lease the two governments signed, the Bush administration
argued, Cuba holds ultimate control over the property. Lawyers
for the detainees say the naval base, which houses a detention
camp for prisoners captured in foreign wars, is U.S. territory
and therefore prisoners should be protected by U.S. laws.
"Cuban law doesn't apply there. Cuban law has never had
any application inside that base. A stamp with Fidel Castro's
picture on it wouldn't get a letter off the base," said John
Gibbons, the attorney representing the detainees.
Some members of the court seemed to agree with Gibbons' argument,
including Justice Stephen Breyer, who raised the notion of checks
and balances, the U.S. form of government that allows for each
of the three branches of government to rein in the other.
"It seems rather contrary to an idea of a Constitution with
three branches that the executive would be free to do whatever
they want, whatever they want without a check," Breyer said.
 But
Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether the court was in a position
to create such a check on the government or the military.
"We have only lawyers before us, we have no witnesses, we
have no cross-examination, we have no investigative staff,"
he said. "And we should be the ones, Justice Breyer suggests,
to draw up this reticulated system to preserve our military from
intervention by the courts?"
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The case
of the 'enemy combatants' |
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On April 28, the court will review the cases of two U.S. citizens
being held indefinitely as "enemy combatants" -- Yaser
Hamdi, an American caught fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan,
and Chicago native Jose Padilla, who changed his name to Abdullah
al-Muhajir. The FBI arrested Padilla after it reportedly uncovered
a plot to explode a so-called "dirty bomb" -- a bomb
that can be used to spread radioactive material.
 Neither
Hamdi nor Padilla has been charged with a crime. Their lawyers
are asking that they be released or officially charged and given
the opportunity to argue their cases in court, a right afforded
to all Americans under the Constitution.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide all three cases in June.
If the government loses, it would set limits on the power of the
president during times of war. If it wins, it will allow the United
States to continue to detain the prisoners. Either way, the court
will be setting the first legal boundaries in America's ongoing
war on terrorism.
--
Kristina Nwazota, Online NewsHour
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