Boumediene vs Bush - Case Study Example

BOUMEDIENE V. BUSH Institute: Issue Do the procedures prescribed by Congress in the Detainee Treatment Act provide protection that the habeas corpus guarantees? Are the detainees of Guantanamo Bay entitled to the protection and can the detainees challenge the competence of the judicial review provisions of the Military Commission Act before they have sought to invoke that review? Do the prisoners have a right to the habeas corpus under the United States Constitution, and which acts is an unconstitutional suspension of that right? To which persons does the constitutional right of habeas corpus apply? Rules In January 2002, the Supreme Court of Bosnia ruled that the charges were to be dropped, and the six men released since there was no adequate evidence to hold the men. On June 12, 2002, it was ruled by the United States Supreme Court that protection of the United States Constitution was to be provided to the Guantanamo detainees. On November 20 2008, the court ruled that to allow enemy competency to be taken lightly would be inconsistent with the Court’s obligation: the court will grant their petitions and order their release. It was a unique case, and if there were any others, they would be factually alike. Nobody should be got into a false sense and that all of the cases would look like that one. Analysis The Boumediene v. Bush was made in the United States in a civilian court due to Lakhdar Boumedeine at the time he was held captive by the United States in Cuba, at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps. The habeas petition Al Odah v. United States was merged with the case and challenged the authenticity of the detention of Boumedeine at the military base of the United States Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, together with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The Supreme Court heard the legal arguments on the combined case on December 5th 2007. Lakhdar Boumediene in early January 2002 was held in custody in the United States Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Boumediene is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina and an employee of the Red Crescent state of the Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. He was picked up in Bosnia in 2001 where he was suspected in a plot of bombing the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo. In January 2002, he had arrived at Gitmo, where he stayed for not less than six years without charges being filed and without any hope of release. The first habeas case was brought in February 2002 by the Center for Constitutional Rights and counsel on behalf of detainees held at Guantanamo. It had been argued initially by the Bush Administration that the detainees were in a territory with no right of accessing the federal courts. Therefore, they could not challenge whether they had been detained lawfully. Later on, Congress tried to throw out the decision with a series of laws after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the persons in habeas cases could go forward under the federal habeas statute. The laws brought out by congress included the Detainee Treatment Act (2005) and the Military Commissions Act 2006 that made the federal laws to get rid of habeas jurisdiction for any foreigner held in the U.S custody. Amendments made a much more narrowed survey proceeding in the Court of Appeals as a substitute for habeas review for the Columbia District. This was for individuals to test the military’s categorization of them as the enemy combatants. The Center for Constitutional Rights argued that the DTA process fell short of habeas and could not be corrected due to violations that occurred during the CSRT at Guantanamo (Transnational Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), 2007). Taking the extraterritorial application of the constitution to Guantanamo in consideration, the Court adopted a practical approach that it has applied in first cases. Since Guantanamo was outside the sovereign territory of the United States, the constitution did not apply and thus the Court strongly criticized the President and the Congress’ attempt to declare that. In the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision which stated that Guantanamo detainees had to be given the right to be ordained the right to sleeve the acts of habeas corpus in U.S federal courts, he led the plaintiff in Boumediene v. Bush. In the early October 2001, a man named Bensayah Belkacem was arrested by Bonsia, of whom was believed had severally made calls to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and five of his associates with Boumediene included. This was as a result of an al Qaeda’s attack a month before the arrest of which the Intelligence analysts in the United States Embassy in Sarajevo had become aware of an attack being planned on the Embassy (U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), 2007). It was ruled by the Supreme Court of Bosnia in January 2002 that there was no evidence to hold the six men in custody hence the charges were dropped, and the men were released. American forces that were waiting for the release of the six men from the Bosnia custody captured them and took them to Guantanamo. Some factors that warranted the application of the Suspension Clause to Guantanamo including that the petitioners are non- citizens who dispute their status as was found out by CSRTs in a proceeding that was not fair; the United States exercise jurisdiction and control over Guantanamo, with no other laws of the country applying and no arguments exist that habeas proceedings would obstruct whichever military mission at Guantanamo. It was concluded by the court that the individuals at the Guantanamo have a right to challenge their detention, which is governed by the Suspension Clause. In 2006, congress passed the Military Commission Act (MCA) of 2006 which eliminates federal court’s jurisdiction to hear habeas applications from detainees who have been designated as enemy combatants. The detainees argued that their petitions had not been applied by the MCA unless it was unconstitutional under the Suspension Clause. This asserts that the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus will not be suspended, unless in the Cases of Rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it. In 2008, June, an opinion was delivered by Justice Kennedy for the hold which stated that the prisoners had a right under the U.S Supreme Law to the habeas corpus and that the MCA was a suspension of that right. The D.C. Circuit had ruled in favor of the government. According to the Circuit Court, one of the purposes of the MCA was to take precedence over the Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which had permitted many petitions including Boumedeine’s to proceed. It was held that the Suspension Clause only supports the habeas corpus writ as it existed in 1789, stressing that the writ would not have been understood in that year to apply to a lease from a foreign government of an overseas military base. The opinion begins with a survey of historical habeas cases in which common law courts considered cases of non-citizens imprisoned without trial after the Justice Kennedy writing for the majority. Acknowledging the uniqueness of the Administration’s practices at Guantanamo, it was found out by the court that the arguments on historical habeas case made by either side were on point. Throughout the opinion, the court paid attention to the emphasis of the Center on the long imprisonment of the clients without going through a trial. The court refused to continence further delay of the merits of the challenges of the detainees to their imprisonment. The court brought much need finality to the drawn out struggle instead of waiting for the Court of Appeals to decide on the DTA’s lawfulness of the proceedings or the effort to make the DTA to be considered constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia made two opinion writings that capture the viewpoints of the conservative wing of the court that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not given the writ of habeas corpus and the rights which they are permitted to are satisfied by the Congress found in the Detainee Treatment Act. Chief Justice Robert paid attention on whether the process was able to afford the Guantanamo detainees in the Detainee Treatment Act which was an adequate substitute for the Habeas protections that the Constitution guaranteed. He implied that the matter about if the detainees had been given any Suspension Clause rights were debatable because if they did, he found that the rights would still not be dishonored. This was in line with a reading which deprived German war prisoners of rights mostly due to both logistical and practical concerns. In addition, the determination of them being accorded an adequate substitute. Conclusion In conclusion, the procedures prescribed by the Congress in detainee treatment Act provide the essential protections that habeas corpus guarantees. There is no basis for judicial intervention beyond what the act allows, and there has been no suspension on the writ. Enemy prisoners should be handled by the judiciary branch which at least knows about the national security concerns that the subject entails. The suspension Clause should preserve the privilege of the writ for aliens who are held as enemies by the United States military at the base in Guantanamo Bay which is in the sovereign territory of Cuba. It cannot be determined whether the writ historically extends to aliens held abroad and Guantanamo Bay lays the sovereign territory of the United States. However, aliens captured by the United States have not been ensured by the Constitution in the areas over which the Government is not sovereign. The right of habeas corpus review applies to persons held in Guantanamo and also to those persons designated as enemy combatants on that territory. It was found out by the court that the clients had met their load of ensuring that the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act failed to provide and satisfactory substitute for habeas corpus. The Court concluded that detainees are not supposed to drain out review procedures in the Court of appeals before the habeas corpus actions in the district court were pursued. After revealing that the United States had the de facto superiority over Guantanamo, the majority distinguished between de jure and de facto. The court also concluded that the review of the DTA was not a satisfactory alternative for a habeas petition. A habeas proceeding must bear the petitioner a meaningful power to remove errors in the under review, an opportunity to challenge the abundance of the evidence of the government and an opportunity to present and have a court put in consideration the exculpatory evidence that is not considered by the tribunal. Pending DTA cases together with the statute have made the Court conclude that it failed to provide enough substitutes for habeas. The DTA law does not succeed to provide release from custody as a solution, and it offers no procedures to present a new proof and to bring the wide variety of legal challenges found in a habeas proceeding. This made the Court put down the sector of the DTA that refused petitioners of their constitutional right to habeas. Reference Douglas, G., Pearce, J., & Woodward, H. (2009). Cohabitants, Property and the Law: A study of injustice. The modern Law Review , 72. Kingsley, C. (2006). Global Injustice: The Politics of War Crimes Trials. London : Praeger Security International. Transnational Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). (2007). Immigration Enforcement: The Rhetoric, the Reality. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Transnational Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC): http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/178 U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). (1997). Criminal Resource Manual 679: The Major Crimes Act—18 U.S.C., Section 1183. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ): http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00679.htm U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). (1997). Criminal Resource Manual 688: State Jurisdiction. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ): http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00688.htm U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). (1997). Criminal resource manual 679: The Major Crimes Act—18 U.S.C., Section 1183. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ): http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00679.htm U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). (2007). DOI History . Retrieved April 5, 2012, from U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI): http://www.doi.gov/history.html Read More