No-Hearing Hearings

In addition, the process was to fulfill the obligation under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention, to determine if persons were prisoners of war or enemy combatants.

In 2006, after the CSRTs were completed, the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University School of Law published No-Hearing Hearings, its review of the process and outcome for detainees based on publicly available materials, some procured under the Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request.

[2] With the Military Commissions Act of 2006 in mind, Andrew Cohen, the legal commentator of the Washington Post, stated: If the actual trials of the detainees are as empty and shallow and pre-ordained as were the Status Review Tribunals there is every reason to be mortified at the prospect -- made real by the legislation -- that the federal courts will be frozen out of vital oversight functions.

If a regular trial court proceeding were this shoddy, this unwilling to perform a truth-seeking function, this unable to achieve a fair process, the judge presiding over it would be impeached.

[3]Nat Hentoff opined in the Village Voice that the "conditions of confinement and a total lack of the due process that the Supreme Court ordered in 'Rasul v. Bush' and 'Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'" makes US government officials culpable for war crimes.

This is the trailer where the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held. The detainee's hands and feet are shackled to a bolt in the floor in front of the white plastic chair. [ 4 ] Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.