Government opposes detainee plea
on Feb 20, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Moving swiftly to take advantage of a D.C. Circuit Court ruling scuttling Guantanamo Bay detainees’ habeas challenges, the Justice Department on Tuesday afternoon urged Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., to deny all relief to one of the prisoners at the military prison in Cuba — Sharaf Al Sanani. Replying to a request by Roberts for a reaction to Al Sanani’s plea, the Department said the Circuit Court decision “eliminates the alleged need for this Court to take the extraordinary step” of forcing the military to spell out why it is holding Al Sanani. The government reply can be found here. (A link to the Circuit Court ruling can be found in this earlier post. Al Sanini’s plea is discussed in this post, published before the D.C. Circuit ruled.)
Even if the Supreme Court should ultimately overturn the D.C. Circuit and restore detainees’ habeas rights (an appeal is expected), the government filing said, there is no need for the Justices to step in to take over habeas procedures that the District Courts can handle. All that Al Sanani is seeking, it argued, is a procedural ruling, and the Court should not get involved in such oversight.
Al Sanani was one of the first detainee cases to reach the Supreme Court in the wake of Congress’ action last Fall in stripping the courts of any power to review detainee habeas challenges to their detention — the power upheld earlier Tuesday by the D.C. Circuit. (His application is 06A797, Al Sanani v. Bush.) He wants an order to force the Pentagon to provide details of why it thinks he should remain at Guantanamo with the status of “enemy combatant.” He has been charged with no crime.
In its reply, the government said that Al Sanani’s lawyers can obtain access to information about why he is being held by filing a new challenge in the D.C. Circuit Court, using the limited review procedures that Congress set up as an alternative to habeas. Those procedures would allow the Circuit Court to review at least some aspects of the military process for declaring war-on-terrorism suspects as “enemy combatants.”
While Al Sanani is facing an annual review of whether to continue his detention, separate from the basic tribunal that designated himi an “enemy combatant,” he has no legal right to a court order to force the military to give him classified information for use before such a review takes place, the Justice Department contended. The courts, it said, have no authority to review what happens in those annual reviews.
While Al Sanani’s application is pending before Roberts as the Circuit Justice for the D.C. Circuit, he has the authority to refer it to the full Court, as well as the power to decide it himself. A prompt order is expected.
Meanwhile, the Court on Tuesday turned aside all three requests for relief in the first Guantanamo Bay detainee case to reach it since the court-stripping law was passed. Lawyers for Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman now detained at Guantanamo, had sought release from that prison camp in order to receive medical care for a heart ailment. The Court denied, without comment, his petition for certiorari (06-8447), for an original habeas writ (06-8448), and a writ of mandamus (06-8449). The Justice Department last Wednesday urged the Court to reject all of these pleas.
