[News] Guantanamo prisoner has right to see lawyer, US court rules

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Guantanamo prisoner has right to see lawyer, US court rules

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=474599&host=3&dir=70



By Rupert Cornwell in Washington




19 December 2003

The Bush administration was yesterday handed a double legal rebuke for its 
treatment of detainees in its war on terror, including a first-ever court 
ruling that foreign prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay should have access to 
lawyers and the American court system.

The decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals relates only to a Libyan 
prisoner captured in Afghanistan. But it has implications for the treatment 
of all 660 detainees at Camp Delta, including nine Britons. It sets the 
stage for a momentous ruling next year by the Supreme Court, which has 
agreed to hear arguments on the status of those held in Guantanamo Bay.

In essence, the court will determine whether the US government has the 
right to keep people in a military prison, denying them legal 
representation and holding them for years without charges or trial.

Hours earlier, another federal appeals court dealt President George Bush a 
first blow by giving the government 30 days to release Jose Padilla, a US 
citizen, from the military prison where he has been held incommunicado 
since being arrested 18 months ago.

Mr Padilla was detained in June 2002 at O'Hare airport in Chicago as he 
arrived on a flight from Pakistan, to face accusations he was plotting a 
radioactive "dirty bomb" attack against a US city. He was designated an 
enemy combatant akin to the Guantanamo Bay detainees and sent to a naval 
brig in South Carolina.

But in a 2-1 decision, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 
US president did not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on 
US soil as an enemy combatant. Only Congress had this authority, the ruling 
said.

"Presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum," the court declared.

"Where, as here, the President's power as Commander-in-Chief of the armed 
forces and the domestic rule of law intersect, we conclude that clear 
congressional authorisation is required."

The ruling is a resounding, if belated, victory for US civil rights 
campaigners, who regard the Padilla case as the most egregious abuse of 
power by the Bush administration on the home front of the "war on terror". 
Together with the Guantanamo ruling, it is a sign of a legal backlash 
against what critics say is a denial of basic human and legal rights, in 
breach of all judicial precedent here.

The Government now has two options. It can comply with the decision, and 
transfer Mr Padilla to the civilian judicial system, where criminal charges 
could be brought against him. Alternatively, it may lodge an appeal of its 
own. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment last night but 
government prosecutors had argued he should not have access to lawyers 
because he posed a threat to national security, and his defence attorneys 
might interfere with his interrogation.





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