Civil Action No. 08-5424

Civil Action No. 08-5424is a writ of habeas corpus filed on behalf of seventeen Uyghur captives in Guantanamo.cite web
url=http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ca-stay-on-uighurs-10-8-08.pdf
title=Civil Action No. 08-5424 -- Filed On: October 8, 2008 -- BEFORE: Henderson, Randolph, and Rogers, Circuit Judges
publisher=United States Department of Justice
author=
date=
accessdate=2008-10-09
quote= ]

Military Commissions Act

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 mandated that Guantanamo captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding habeas corpus petitions were stayed.cite news
url=http://natseclaw.typepad.com/natseclaw/files/Hamdan.28j.letter.pdf
title=NOTICE OF MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT OF 2006
publisher=United States Department of Justice
author=Peter D. Keisler, Douglas N. Letter
date=2006-10-16
accessdate=2008-09-30
quote= [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnatseclaw.typepad.com%2Fnatseclaw%2Ffiles%2FHamdan.28j.letter.pdf&date=2008-09-30 mirror] ]

Boumediene v. Bush

On June 12 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated.

Parhat v. Gates

The United States Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Both these Acts included provisions to close of Guantanamo captives' ability to file habeas corpus petitions.cite news
url=http://www.slate.com/id/2176017/
title=The Dog Ate My Evidence: What happens when the government can't re-create the case against you?
publisher=Slate magazine
author=Dahlia Lithwick
date=2007-10-17
accessdate=2008-08-18
quote=Is the government taking the position that this evidence is both critically, vitally, and hugely important to national security, but also, um, lost? Not quite. But it is saying that the 'record' relied upon to lock up men for years is somehow so scattered among various Department of Defense 'components, and all relevant federal agencies' that it cannot be pulled together for a review. [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slate.com%2Fid%2F2176017%2F&date=2008-08-18 mirror] ]

The Detainee Treatment Act included a provision to proscribe Guantanamo captives who had not already initiated a habeas corpus petition from initiating new habeas corpus petitions. The Act included provision for an alternate, more limited form of appeal for captives. Captives were allowed to submit limited appeals to panels of three judges in a Washington DC appeals court. The appeals were limited -- they could not be based on general principles of human rights. They could only be based on arguments that their Combatant Status Review Tribunal had not followed the rules laid out for the operation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Nine months later Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. This Act contained provision to close off all the remaining outstanding habeas corpus petitions. After the closure of the habeas corpus petitions some Guantanamo captives had appeals in the Washington DC court submitted on their behalf, as described in the Detainee Treatment Act.

The DTA appeals progressed very slowly. Initially the Department of Justice argued that the captive's lawyers, and the judges on the panel, needed consider no more evidence than the "Summary of Evidence memos" prepared for the captives' CSR Tribunals. By September of 2007 the Washington DC court ruled that the evidence that formed the basis of the summaries had to be made available.

The Administration then argued that it was not possible to present the evidence the Tribunals considered in 2004 -- because the evidence had not been preserved.

Only one captive, a Uyghur captive Hufaiza Parhat, had his DTA appeal run to completion. On June 20 2008 his three judge panel concluded that his Tribunal had erred and had insufficient justification for confirming his enemy combatant status.

The judges ruled that the Bush administration's choices included releasing him, or convening a new Combatant Status Review Tribunal, if it felt better evidence could be mustered. In August 2008 the Bush administration chose not to convene a new Tribunal.

Re-instatement and amalgamation

In July 2008 attorneys working on behalf of the Uyghur captives set in motion the re-instatement of their habeas petitions.Habeas petitions
Civil Action No. 05-cv-1509,
Civil Action No. 05-cv-1602,
Civil Action No. 05-cv-1704,
Civil Action No. 05-cv-2370,
Civil Action No. 05-cv-2398,
Civil Action No. 08-cv-1310 were amalgamated as Civil Action No. 08-5424.

Bush administration abandonment of the enemy combatant classification

The Department of Justice had a deadline of 2008 October 7 to present its evidence to US District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina that the remaining sixteen Uyghurs were enemy combatants. On 2008 September 30 Department of Justice officials filed a notice stating that they would not be filing a defense for classifying the Uyghurs as enemy combatants, and that they would no longer be treated as enemy combatants.

Urbina's order for the Uyghurs to be released in the USA

On 7 October 2008 Urbina ordered the Uyghur's release in the USA. He ordered the Department of Defense to being the Uyghurs to his court in Washington DC by 10 October 2008.The Bush administration immediately filed a motion for an emergency stay order, which was granted by a three judge panel of a Washington DC appeals court.

References