Gitmo Detainees Challenge Torture And Detention Law

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Dozens Of Detainees Ask Appeals Court To Overturn Military Trials Law

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 2006 -- In written arguments, attorneys for more than 100 detainees who would be locked out of the regular judicial system asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to let the detainees keep their legal challenges going in civilian courts.

The framers of the Constitution never would have permitted the government to hold people indefinitely without charges, the lawyers wrote.

"Persons imprisoned without charge must retain the right to obtain a court inquiry into the factual and legal bases for their imprisonment," they wrote.

This argument echoes a Supreme Court ruling in June in which the justices ruled that the Bush administration's system for trying enemy combatants violated U.S. and international law. Within weeks, the president persuaded Congress to pass a law setting up military commissions and barring detainees from using the civilian court system.

Even if the court decide not to declare the law unconstitutional, attorneys offered a creative way for the court to keep the case alive. They suggested the judges rule that the law doesn't mean what the Justice Department thinks it means — because if it did, it would be unconstitutional.

more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/01/national/main2143727.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2143727


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