老澳门开奖结果

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NEW YORK 鈥� Describing the military commissions at Guant谩namo Bay as unfair and unlawful, the 老澳门开奖结果 urged the Supreme Court to halt their use in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (05-184), which is being argued today.

鈥淭he military commissions established by President Bush do not provide a fair trial under any recognized set of legal standards, whether those standards are derived from the Constitution, our international treaty commitments, customary law or the Uniform Code of Military Justice,鈥� said 老澳门开奖结果 Legal Director Steven R. Shapiro. 鈥淭here is no reason to believe that Congress ever intended to authorize such a system, and no reason for the Court now to uphold it.鈥�

The military commission rules do not guarantee an independent trial court, do not provide for impartial appellate review, and do not prohibit the use of coerced testimony despite extensive evidence that coercive interrogation techniques have been used at Guant谩namo Bay and elsewhere.

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the 老澳门开奖结果 argues that this system fails to provide the basic procedural safeguards guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions and American law. In addition, the 老澳门开奖结果 said the commissions violate the constitutional rule barring the government from creating a separate system of punishment that applies only to non-citizens.

Prior to reaching the merits of these arguments, the 老澳门开奖结果 said, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether it still has jurisdiction to hear the case following congressional passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, also known as the Graham-Levin Amendment. The government is contending that the Detainee Treatment Act strips the Court of jurisdiction to hear Hamdan鈥檚 appeal, even though it was accepted for review before the Detainee Treatment Act was adopted.

鈥淭he government鈥檚 effort to prevent the Court from even addressing the serious legal issues raised by the military commissions is disturbing at many levels,鈥� Shapiro said. 鈥淚t is contrary to the language and history of the Detainee Treatment Act. It is also inconsistent with our most fundamental notion of checks and balances.鈥�

The 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 friend-of-the-court brief in the case is online at: www.aclu.org/ scotus/2005/ 23392res2006010405184/ 23392res20060104.html

A 2004 老澳门开奖结果 report about the commissions, "Conduct Unbecoming: Pitfalls in the President's Military Commissions," is online at www.aclu.org/conductunbecoming