Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz[4] after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld[5] and Rasul v. Bush[6] and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
These non-public hearings were conducted as "a formal review of all the information related to a detainee to determine whether each person meets the criteria to be designated as an enemy combatant.
")[9] This is most likely because, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, a plurality of the Supreme Court suggested the Department of Defense empanel tribunals similar to the AR 190 to make factual status determinations.
In Guleed Hassan Ahmed's CSRT transcript one finds the following exchange: PRESIDENT:[The]Tribunal has completed its review of the unclassified evidence provided.
When captured, he was close to being granted German citizenship, which children of guest workers are required to apply for in a separate process when they come of age.
When his case was reviewed by a CSRT in the fall of 2004, the tribunal's determined there was enough evidence that Kurnaz had ties to terrorism to classify and hold him as an enemy combatant.
Green's comment on the memo was that it: fails to provide significant details to support its conclusory allegations, does not reveal the sources for its information and is contradicted by other evidence in the record.Green stated that Kurnaz' case was an "extreme example of illegal detention" at Guantanamo.
[citation needed]Principal arguments of why these tribunals are inadequate to warrant acceptance as "competent tribunal" are: [17][18] Some specific cases that call attention to what critics assert is a flawed nature of the CSRT procedure: Mustafa Ait Idir, Moazzam Begg, Murat Kurnaz, Feroz Abbasi, and Martin Mubanga.
[16][19] James Crisfield, the legal advisor to the Tribunals, offered his legal opinion, that CSRT do not have the discretion to determine that a detainee should be classified as a prisoner of war -- only whether the detainee satisfies the definition of "enemy combatant"[20]Determining whether a captive should be classified as a prisoner of war is the purpose of a "competent tribunal".
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Geneva Conventions should be applied, but only Article 3, which does not require a competent tribunal.
[22] According to the prior Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, The basis of detaining captured enemy combatants is not to punish but, rather, to prevent them from continuing to fight against the United States and its coalition partners in the ongoing global war on terrorism.
Nevertheless, Bush said the transfer would allow the men, most of whom were considered to be members of the inner circle of al Qaeda's senior leadership, to be tried at Guantanamo Bay using the CSRT procedures.
The court ruled that detainees had the right to challenge the basis of their detention, and that the government needed to distinguish between POWs, civilians, and enemy combatants.
[24] The Supreme Court ruled on the outstanding habeas corpus appeals in Al Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush (2008), discussed below.
The Military Commission Act provides a process by which captives can appeal the decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal and whether it properly followed OARDEC's rules in reaching its determination.
[citation needed] On June 12, 2008 the Supreme Court ruled in the case Boumediene v. Bush, 5–4, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to access the US justice system.
[29][30][31][32] Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion: The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.The Court also ruled that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were "inadequate".
[29] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy in the majority.
By granting the writ of habeas corpus, the Supreme Court recognizes a rule of law established hundreds of years ago and essential to American jurisprudence since our nation's founding.
