Supreme Court rules that Guantánamo prisoners have habeas corpus rights

The long awaited Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush, about whether or not the prisoners at Guantánamo have a Constitutional right to habeas corpus — the right to challenge the basis of their otherwise endless detention without charge or trial, which was granted by the Supreme Court in June 2004, but taken away by Congress in 2005’s Detainee Treatment Act and 2006’s Military Commissions Act — has just been announced, and the United States’ highest judges have ruled, by 5 to 4, that Congress “had not validly taken away habeas rights.”

At present, SCOTUSblog is one of the few outlets to report the story, as follows:

“In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantánamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights.

“The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” the individuals at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered by the District judges.”

More to follow soon. I’m reading the ruling NOW.

Note: See here for my more detailed response.

Andy is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed, and see here for my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009.