Rights groups blast court decision

The human rights community has responded angrily to the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the cases of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The effect of the high court's Apr. 2 decision is to deny civil judicial review to the 300-plus prisoners still held at the controversial US military base until their cases have gone through the process set up by the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), which allows limited civil court appeals of decisions reached by military review panels. Reaction from human rights and legal advocacy groups was quick and scathing. Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the group that filed the petition on behalf of three Guantánamo detainees, said: "The Supreme Court has once more delayed the resolution of the fate of these detainees–three quarters of whom the military admits it will never charge–who have languished without any meaningful way to challenge their detention for more than five years." He added, "The processes the government put in place are a sham–they allow the use of evidence obtained through torture and no real review of the facts. DTA review is not an adequate substitute for the right of habeas corpus. We hope our clients survive until they finally get their day in court." The CCR represents many of the detainees at Guantánamo and coordinates the work of nearly 500 pro bono attorneys. Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, said: "After having endured up to five years of waiting in vain for justice, Guantánamo detainees, many of whom have never been charged with any hostile act against Americans but all of whom have endured severe and abusive conditions and treatment in violation of international law, are now told to take their claims back to the very same lower courts that have denied their right to even file a judicial challenge to their detention." The two justices who issued the statement, Kennedy and Stevens, wrote that they wanted to see the process put in place by the DTA played out to determine if it is an adequate substitute for habeas corpus before they rule. The DTA allows detainees to challenge in the Court of Appeals the decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) determining they are so-called "enemy combatants." CCR attorneys called the CSRTs "a sham process where the government controls what evidence and witnesses are permitted, evidence obtained by torture is permissible, and the detainees have no lawyer representing them and no guarantee of due process." CCR lawyers pointed out that "Some detainees were sent through the CSRT process as many as three times until they were found guilty–the process is designed to get the government the results it wants."