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Bush administration disagrees with ruling on detainees
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-13 19:25 WASHINGTON - The Bush administration disagrees strongly with a Supreme Court decision that gives suspected terrorists the right to go to federal court to seek their release from indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday the deeply divided high court ruling would not affect the Guantanamo trials against enemy combatants and President Bush said he might seek a new law to keep the alleged terrorists in a US prison. Thursday's much-anticipated 5-to-4 ruling was the third time the justices have repudiated Bush on his ambitious and hugely controversial schemes to hold the suspects outside the protections of US law. Speaking at a Group of Eight meeting of justice and home affairs ministers in Tokyo, Mukasey said, "I'm disappointed with the decision, in so far as I understand that it will result in hundreds of actions challenging the detention of enemy combatants to be moved to federal district court." He added: "I think it bears emphasis that the court's decision does not concern military commission trials, which will continue to proceed. Instead it addresses the procedures that the Congress and the president put in place to permit enemy combatants to challenge their detention." He said the Justice Department would comply with the ruling while studying the decision and "whether any legislation or any other action may be appropriate." In writing for the court majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy acknowledged the terrorism threat the country faces - the administration's justification for the detentions - but he declared, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times." But in a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Bush has argued the detentions are needed to protect the nation in a time of unprecedented threats from al-Qaida and other foreign terrorist groups. The president, in Rome on Thursday, said, "It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented." He said he would consider whether to seek new laws in light of the ruling. Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but he also said such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances. The ruling itself won't result in any immediate releases. The decision also cast doubt on the future of the military war crimes trials that 19 detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters, are facing so far. The Pentagon has said it plans to try as many as 80 men held at Guantanamo. Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo who resigned in October amid disagreements with his Pentagon superiors, said, "I believe the drafters of the Constitution would be turning over in their graves to find out that people intent on destroying our society have constitutional rights." Lawyers for detainees differed over whether the ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for those who have not been charged. Roughly 270 men remain at the prison at the US naval base in Cuba. Most are classed as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Some detainee lawyers said hearings could take place within a few months. But James Cohen, a Fordham University law professor who has two clients at Guantanamo, predicted Bush would continue seeking ways to resist the ruling. "Nothing is going to happen between June 12 and Jan. 20," when the next president takes office, Cohen said. Roughly 200 detainees have lawsuits on hold in federal court in Washington. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would call a special meeting of federal judges to address how to handle the cases. Detainees already facing trial are in a different category. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said Thursday's decision should not affect war crimes trials. "Military commission trials will therefore continue to go forward," Carr said. The lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's one-time driver, said he will seek dismissal of the charges against Hamdan based on the new ruling. A military judge had already delayed the trial's start to await the high court ruling. "The entire legal framework under which Mr. Hamdan was to be tried has been turned on its head," said his lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer. It was unclear whether a hearing at Guantanamo for Canadian Omar Khadr, charged with killing a US Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, would go forward next week as planned. Charles Swift, the former Navy lawyer who used to represent Hamdan, said he believes the court removed any legal basis for keeping the Guantanamo facility open and that the military tribunals are "doomed." |
