US: The US Supreme Court yesterday sharply restricted the power of the Bush administration to detain terrorism suspects. It ruled that foreigners imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay and Americans held as enemy combatants on US soil have the right to challenge their detention in court.
In three separate rulings on detainees, the Supreme Court made no decision on the merits of any of the cases, nor did it order the release of any prisoners. However, it clearly rejected the Bush administration's claim that it can detain citizens and non-citizens on the authority of the President alone, beyond the reach of any court or law.
The administration claims that those captured in the war on terrorism are unlawful enemy combatants who have neither prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions nor the right to petition US courts for their release.
The Supreme Court's decision may open a new front in the controversy over US treatment of detainees in Guantanamo. It was unclear whether the ruling could apply elsewhere. Legal experts said it indicated that detainees may have the right to bring lawsuits against the US government under a statute known as the Alien Tort Claims Act if they believe they have been wrongfully imprisoned, abused or tortured.
Lawyers for the detainees said they would move immediately to file petitions with US courts seeking access to prisoners and reports on their conditions, and would seek a review on whether they were being held lawfully.
In the Guantanamo decision, which involved foreign prisoners at a US military base in Cuba, the court ruled 6-3 that US federal courts have jurisdiction to consider the claims of terrorism suspects held there.
The Guantanamo ruling was tempered by the judgment in a related case involving an American held as an enemy combatant on US soil. The court ruled by a different 6-3 majority that Yaser Esam Hamdi also had the right to challenge his detention.
In a third ruling, the court decided the case of terror suspect José Padilla on narrow procedural grounds, ruling he should have brought the challenge in South Carolina instead of New York, sidestepping a decision on whether Mr Bush had the power to detain him.