Democrats in Congress have promised to review the law governing the trial of inmates at Guantánamo Bay after a federal court ruled that detainees had no right to challenge their detention through the US court system.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals ruled that a law passed by Congress last year, when Republicans were in the majority, which also established ground rules for military commissions to try the detainees, prevents detainees from pursuing habeas corpus claims in US courts.
The decision, which is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, dismisses a raft of legal challenges by Guantánamo detainees.
"Precedent in this court and the Supreme Court holds that the constitution does not confer rights on aliens without property or presence in the United States," wrote Judge Raymond Randolph in the majority opinion.
In her dissenting opinion, Judge Judith Rogers wrote that habeas corpus could apply to foreign nationals outside the US and that Congress had not properly suspended habeas corpus, something it had done only four times, including during the Civil War.
Congress may suspend that right only "when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it", she wrote.
Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer at the Centre for Constitutional Rights which represents many of the detainees, said the ruling "encouraged a contempt for international human rights law".
"This decision empowers the president to do whatever he wishes to prisoners without any legal limitation as long as he does it offshore," he said.
House armed services committee chairman Ike Skelton noted the Appeals Court ruling but said the Supreme Court had yet to speak.
"In the meantime, I will lead the armed services committee in a careful review of the Military Commissions Act.
"The last thing that we would want is to convict an individual for terrorism and then have that conviction overturned because of fatal flaws in the military commissions law passed in the previous Congress," he said.
The Bush administration has long argued that foreign detainees should not enjoy US constitutional rights when they are detained outside the US.