Akhdar Qasem Basit - Passage of The Military Commissions Act and The Detainee Treatment Act

Passage of The Military Commissions Act and The Detainee Treatment Act

In the Summer of 2006, the habeas corpus submissions known as Hamdan v. Rumsfeld reached the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled the Executive Branch lacked the Constitutional authority to initiate military commissions to try Guantanamo captives. However, it also ruled that the United States Congress did have the authority to set up military commissions. And, in the fall of 2006 the Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, setting up military commissions similar to those initially set up by the Executive Branch.

The Act also stripped captives of the right to file habeas corpus submissions in the US Court system. The earlier Detainee Treatment Act, passed on December 31, 2005, had stripped captives of the right to initiate new habeas corpus submissions, while leaving existing habeas corpus motions in progress.

The Detainee Treatment Act had explicitly authorized an appeal process for Combatant Status Review Tribunals which failed to follow the military's own rules. And Sabin Willet, the Uyghur's lawyer, has chosen to initiate appeals of the Uyghur's Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

"Each Uighurs' CSRT was inconsistent with the standards and procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense, because none appropriately applied the definition of 'Enemy Combatant'. The CSRT Procedures defined an 'enemy combatant' as: 'an individual who was part of or supporting the Taliban or al-Qaida forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.'"

However, Willet argues, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals failed to consider the interrogators conclusions that the Uyghurs were not enemies, had not supported the Taliban, and had not engaged in hostilities.

Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler led the response team. Keisler's team accused Willet of trying to:

"...recreate the habeas regime that Congress recently abolished."

They said the argument boiled down to:

" detainees captured on a battlefield during a time of war, be given unprecedented access to our nations courts and to classified information, even after Congress emphatically rejected such an approach?"

Read more about this topic:  Akhdar Qasem Basit

Famous quotes containing the words passage of, passage, military, act and/or treatment:

    Modern dancers are inconvenienced by a local ordinance requiring the passage of visible light between partners.
    State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    My faith is the grand drama of my life. I’m a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colours for those who see none.
    Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)

    As humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to existence over men. The elimination of any male is, therefore, a righteous and good act, an act highly beneficial to women as well as an act of mercy.
    Valerie Solanas (b. 1940)

    [17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)