Lawmakers And Lawyers Challenge Bush Administration Military Commissions

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00101.htm

Lawmakers And Lawyers Challenge Bush Administration Military Commissions

By William Fisher

In the face of multiple legal and legislative challenges, President George W. Bush this week issued an executive order to allow cases against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to move forward to trials by military tribunals.

The challenges are to the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which Bush signed into law last October. The first three cases to be tried under the law involve an Australian, a Yemeni, and a Canadian, all held at Guantanamo.

The Australian, David Hicks, is expected to be formally charged by the military by the end of next week, along with Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni accused of supporting al-Qaida operatives.

Authorities drafted charges -- including murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism -- against the three on Feb. 2. Once formal charges are filed, a timetable requires preliminary hearings within 30 days and the start of a jury trial within 120 days at Guantanamo, where nearly 400 men are still held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

On the legislative front, Senator Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and a candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination, this week introduced legislation that would make substantial changes to the MCA. He was joined by fellow Democrats Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

The Dodd legislation restores Habeas Corpus protections to detainees, narrows the definition of unlawful enemy combatant to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States who are not lawful combatants, bars information gained through coercion from being introduced as evidence in trials, empowers military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable, authorizes the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to review decisions by the Military commissions, limits the authority of the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and makes that authority subject to congressional and judicial oversight, and provides for expedited judicial review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to determine the constitutionally of its provisions.

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