Republicans block habeas for Guantánamo detainees

Despite the support of a solid majority of the US Senate, a measure designed to restore the right of foreign terrorist suspects to challenge their detention in federal court was blocked on Sept. 19 on a procedural maneuver. The measure, an amendment to the 2008 defense authorization bill, would have restored habeas corpus rights for non-citizens in US custody, including the some 340 prisoners still held at the naval detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, many of whom have been there for more than five years. Fifty-six senators, including six Republicans, voted for the measure, four short of the 60 needed to cut off a threatened filibuster against it. Forty-three senators, all Republicans, opposed it. Of the 51 Democrats, only Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a strong supporter of President Bush's "global war on terror" who calls himself an Independent Democrat, voted against cutting off debate. "The United States Senate missed a major opportunity to demonstrate leadership by failing to provide senators the opportunity to help reestablish a cornerstone of the US justice system–the right to habeas corpus," said Larry Cox, executive director of the US section of Amnesty International (AIUSA). The Supreme Court is due to take up an emergency appeal by two groups of Guantanamo detainees against the denial of habeas corpus under the Military Commission Act (MCA) of 2006 later this fall. In an earlier case, the Court ruled that detainees have the right to appeal their status as "enemy combatants" in federal court. In that case, the court found that the Bush administration, in establishing its own system of military courts to try suspected terrorists, had exceeded its constitutional powers. As a result, the administration asked the then-Republican-led Congress to enact legislation–the MCA–that effectively ratified the system the administration had already put in place, including the denial of detainees' rights to challenge their detention in federal court. The Senate approved the bill last September, just weeks before the Republicans lost their majority in both houses of Congress. It rejected by a 51-48 vote an amendment sponsored by the then Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, to restore habeas corpus in the bill. "What this bill will do is take our civilization back 900 years," argued Specter during the debate, noting that "the Great Writ," as it is sometimes called, dates back to the English Magna Carta of 1215. Much the same argument was made on Sept. 20, both by Specter and his Democratic successor on the Judicial Committee, Patrick Leahy. "The truth is that casting aside the time-honored protection of habeas corpus makes us more vulnerable as a nation because it leads us away from our core American values," Leahy said. "It calls into question our historic role as a defender of human rights around the world." But, as indicated by the difference in votes between last September and today, sentiment for granting habeas corpus rights has grown in the interim, fueled in part by stories regarding the hundreds of Guantánamo detainees–once described as the "worst of the worst"–who never were involved with al-Qaida or the Taliban, and widely publicized charges in July by a reserve intelligence officer assigned to the military tribunals that hearings were arbitrary and often relied on evidence that was "garbage." The New York Times and Washington Post this week published strong editorials in favor of reinstating habeas corpus rights. Even Bush's influential former speechwriter, Times columnist Michael Gerson, called earlier this month for the Guantánamo detainees to be brought to the United States and permitted to argue their cases before federal judges.