By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: November 11, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/politics/11SCOT.html?ex=1069131600&en=0721ab33e94ebaf8&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
ASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — Setting the stage for a historic clash between presidential and judicial authority in a time of military conflict, the Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether prisoners at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to access to civilian courts to challenge their open-ended detention.
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The court said it would resolve only the jurisdictional question of whether the federal courts can hear such a challenge and not, at this stage, whether these detentions are in fact unconstitutional. Even so, the action was an unmistakable rebuff of the Bush administration's insistence that the detainees' status was a question "constitutionally committed to the executive branch" and not the business of the federal courts, as Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson argued in opposition to Supreme Court review.
In accepting the cases, the court moved from the sidelines to the center of the debate over whether the administration's response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, reflects an appropriate balance between national security and individual liberty.
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