Courts rule for detainees

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, December 18, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO — In twin setbacks for the Bush administration’s war on terror, federal appeals courts on opposite coasts ruled Thursday that the U.S. military cannot indefinitely hold prisoners without access to lawyers or the American courts.

One ruling favored the 660 "enemy combatants" being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The other involved Jose Padilla, an American who was seized in Chicago in an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" and was declared as an enemy combatant.

In Padilla’s case, the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the former gang member released from military custody within 30 days and, if the government chooses, tried in civilian courts. The White House said the government would appeal and seek a stay of the decision.

In the other case, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base should have access to lawyers and the American court system. It was the first such ruling by a federal appeals court anywhere in the country.

"Even in times of national emergency — indeed, particularly in such times — it is the obligation of the judicial branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the executive branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike," Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in ruling in favor of a Libyan captured in Afghanistan and held in Cuba.

The two rulings highlighted the tensions between national security and civil rights since Sept. 11, 2001.

An order by President Bush in November 2001 allows captives to be detained as "enemy combatants" if they are members of al-Qaida, engaged in or aided terrorism, or harbored terrorists. The designation may also be applied if it is "the interest of the United States" to hold an individual during hostilities.

The Justice Department this week said such a classification allows detainees to be held without access to lawyers until U.S. authorities are satisfied they have disclosed everything they know about terrorist operations.

But the New York court ruled 2-1 that Padilla’s detention as an enemy combatant was not authorized by Congress and that the Bush administration could not designate him as an enemy combatant without such approval.

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