US Supreme Court refuses to hear Guantánamo appeals

On February 20 of this year, the District of Columbia appeals court upheld a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denies so-called “alien enemy combatants” the right to challenge their detention in US courts and orders that all such pending habeas corpus petitions be dismissed. The prisoners’ lawyers subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court.

The right of habeas corpus—an individual’s right to challenge his incarceration and have the charges against him presented in court—is a fundamental democratic right originating as far back as the Magna Carta of 1215, and is protected by the US Constitution. The “great writ” of habeas corpus has historically served as a legal bulwark against arbitrary imprisonment, but has come under increasing attack as the US government attempts to assert police-state powers in the name of the “war on terror.”

Omar Khadr, a Canadian, is among those prisoners whose appeal was denied. He is accused of killing a US medic in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15 years old, and awaits a hearing before a Guantánamo military tribunal, officially called a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT).

Of the nearly 400 inmates at the Guantánamo Bay prison, only 10 have ever been charged with a crime.

Supreme Court justices Stephen G. Breyer, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted in favor of allowing the court hear the two cases, Al Odah v. USA and Boumediene v. Bush, and urged the court to hear them on an expedited basis, given the extraordinary circumstances of the prisoners.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/supr-a04.shtml