Uyghur Detainees at Guantanamo Bay - 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?"