Enemy Combatant Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in Federal Court. Updated April 5, 2010

摘要

After the Supreme Court held that federal courts have jurisdiction under the federal habeas corpus statute to hear legal challenges on behalf of persons detained at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the conflict against Al Qaeda and associated groups (Rasul v. Bush), the Pentagon established administrative hearings, called 'Combatant Status Review Tribunals' (CSRTs), to allow the detainees to contest their status as enemy combatants, and informed them of their right to pursue habeas relief in federal court. Lawyers subsequently filed dozens of petitions on behalf of the detainees in the District Court for the District of Columbia, where district court judges reached inconsistent conclusions as to whether the detainees have any enforceable rights to challenge their treatment and detention. Congress subsequently passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA) to divest the courts of jurisdiction to hear some detainees' challenges by eliminating the federal courts, statutory jurisdiction over habeas claims (as well as other causes of action) by aliens detained at Guantanamo. The DTA provided for limited appeals of CSRT determinations or final decisions of military commissions. After the Supreme Court rejected the view that the DTA left it without jurisdiction to review a habeas challenge to the validity of military commissions in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) (P.L. 109- 366) to authorize the President to convene military commissions and to amend the DTA to further reduce detainees' access to federal courts, including in cases already pending.