Habeas Corpus: FCNL Celebrates Supreme Court Decision

Jun 12, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that prisoners held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their captivity in federal courts by fililng a writ of habeas corpus. This means that individuals held at Guantánamo who have been designated “enemy combatants” by the U.S. government are, according to the Court, entitled to a “meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that [they are] being held pursuant to the ‘erroneous application or interpretation’ of relevant law.”

The 5-4 decision undercuts laws passed by Congress, including the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act, that restrict the right of detainees to challenge their detention in a civilian court.

FCNL celebrates this decision, which restores a fundamental protection that has been part of Anglo-Saxon legal tradition for nearly 800 years. The framers of the Constitution believed habeas corpus protections were so important that they wrote: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the Public Safety may require it.”

In its majority opinion, the Court spoke strongly and clearly in defense of the centrality of the writ of habeas corpus, pointing out that it is one of the few rights included in the Constitution itself, before the Bill of Rights was even written. The Court also spoke of the importance of the “great Writ” to the balance of powers among the branches of government.

The Court did leave open the possibility that, in other circumstances, it would consider whether the writ of habeas corpus would apply to military prisoners held abroad. The Court implied that it might approve suspending the writ in circumstances that did not involve rebellion, invasion, or public safety concerns. In some future case, the Court might consider certain “practical obstacles” that could get in the way of a resolution of a prisoner’s right to challenge her or his detention. Citing a 1950 case where the prisoner in question was being held in a German prison following World War II, the Court noted that it would be “sensitive to the financial and administrative costs of holding the Suspension Clause applicable in a case of military detention abroad.”

But for now, the Court has held that “the laws and the Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” and the prisoners at Guantánamo have a right to be heard in civilian courts.

Full text of the opinion in Boumediene et al. v. Bush, President of the United States, et al., is available on the Supreme Court web site.