Judicial Reverse for Bush: Guantanamo Prisoners Can Go Before the Supreme Court

The President of the United States, George W. Bush, suffered a new judicial reverse with respect to the prisoners at the naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. A ruling by the Supreme Court determined that said detainees have the constitutional right to appeal their situation before the American tribunal.

In an approved ruling by five votes against four, the magistrates established that the prisoners in Guantanamo – imprisoned for an undetermined time and without charges – shall be able to appeal their cases. Judge Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority ruling, affirmed that “the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

The court considers the detainees to not only have a series of legal rights authorized by the Constitution, but also that the system which the American government established in order to qualify them as enemy combatants, and to revise these decisions, was inadequate.

On its part, the White House insisted that the prisoners do not have any type of rights. Also, it was alleged that the system of classification, and the cases examined, were an adequate substitute to the civil tribunals in which the detainees would demand to be judged.

Still, it was not divulged whether or not this ruling shall derive an immediate audience for the prisoners, some of which have been imprisoned for more than six years. In this prison, located in Cuba, there are approximately two hundred and seventy detainees, classified as enemy combatants and detained under suspicion of terrorism or connections to Al Qaeda.

This is the third time that the highest court in the United States has ruled in favor of the uncharged prisoners, allowing them the right to appear before a civil court and demand that the government explain the reasons for their continued detention.

But in every opportunity, the Bush government – supported then by the Republican controlled Congress – changed the legal proceedings in order to close the tribunal’s doors to the detainees.

The U.S. government opened the prison on their naval base shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, with the goal of imprisoning “enemy combatants” presumably linked with Al Qaeda or the Taliban religious militia that controlled Afghanistan until the American invasion in November of 2001.

The Guantanamo prison has been harshly criticized by the world for its lack of prisoners’ rights and the torture applied during interrogations.