August 28, 2007

The Muslim Public Affairs Council joined a coalition of public interest and religious groups on Monday to file a joint friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court in support of two companion cases brought by detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in American courts.

The cases, Boumediene v. Bush and al Odah v. U.S., test whether the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, a pillar of the Bush administration's detention policy, validly strips federal courts of jurisdiction over pending habeas corpus petitions filed by foreign citizen detainees held at Guantanamo. The cases are on appeal from a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued on February 20, 2007. The Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs original petition for certoriari on April 2, 2007, and, in an unusual move, reversed that decision on June 29, 2007, after the petitioners sought a rehearing.

The co-counsel in the brief are: The Constitution Project, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and The Rutherford Institute. Fulbright and Jaworski, a leading international law firm with a well-recognized Supreme Court and appellate practice, is serving as counsel.

In addition to the four organizations serving as co-counsel, signatories to the brief are: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Freedom Agenda, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Muslim Public Affairs Council, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Association of Social Workers, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Open Society Institute, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, People for the American Way Foundation, and Union for Reform Judaism.

The administration has strongly opposed permitting habeas corpus suits by foreigners held as enemy combatants outside the United States. At the administration's urging, Congress in 2006 passed the MCA, a key feature of which was to strip federal courts of the ability to hear habeas cases filed by Guantanamo detainees.

The coalition's arguments in support of the right of Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention through habeas corpus focused on the importance of habeas in the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances. According to the group, the Constitution's habeas provision:

"ensures that neither Congress nor the Executive can create 'law-free' zones within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States where the Judiciary cannot independently inquire into the legality of Executive detention...Such Kafkaesque regimes may lawfully exist in other countries where executive power is absolute. But the Framers of our Constitution expressly ensured that habeas corpus would be available to permit the Judiciary to check absolute Executive power."

MPAC underscores the importance of working with a broad coalition and firmly believes that the Guantanamo Bay detainees demonstrate the grave dangers of allowing Congress to eliminate the ability of the independent judiciary to issue writs of habeas corpus. Due to the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress, detainees are unable to file habeas corpus petitions in order to ensure that a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action. MPAC joins this amicus brief with the opinion that the habeas-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act is an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power.