WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- An amendment to the Sept. 11 reform bill would restore to Guantanamo Bay detainees the right to challenge their detention in U.S. federal court.
The amendment, authored by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Arlen Specter, and co-sponsored by Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would effectively repeal a provision of last year's Military Commissions Act, stripping foreign detainees held in U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay naval base of their rights to file so-called habeas writs in federal court. The writs, filed under one of the oldest provisions of English common law, compel the courts to review the applicant's detention.
Habeas writs have been "a cornerstone of American liberty since the founding of this Nation," said Leahy recently.
But former military lawyer Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., one of the authors of the Military Commissions Act, said habeas cases gave the courts an inappropriate role in the war against terror.
"Which institution is best qualified to decide who is a military threat to the United States?" he asked reporters in a recent conference. "The military or the federal courts?"
