Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Beyond Scraping Bottom

In case you thought you'd heard all there was to hear about how perverse the Gitmo CSRT hearings are, think again. Because according to the NY Times, on at least three occasions detainees who had been cleared by an initial tribunal were later classified as enemy combatants after Defense Dept officials in Washington ordered new hearings. On at least one occasion, a detainee was cleared by two "do-over" tribunals, only to be eventually classified as an enemy combatant by a third one. As the article puts it,

If Pentagon officials disagree with the result of a hearing, they order a second one, or even a third, until they approve of the finding.

A Pentagon spokesman justified the repeated hearings by saying that some detainees had actually been re-classified as "no longer enemy combatants" on second hearing, allowing them to go free. But it doesn't take a legal scholar to understand the difference between a judicial appeal and double jeopardy. The first allows a defendant to contest their conviction. The second amounts to repeated prosecution for the same offense until a conviction is produced.

Which is why the US constitution specifically prohibits the practice. And why, according to government briefs in the lawsuit brought on the detainees behalf,

“This is just one of many areas... where it is inappropriate to compare C.S.R.T. proceedings with background principles that stem from domestic criminal law.”

The 2005 law establishing the CSRT's limits judicial oversight to determining whether the military has followed its own established procedures. So it's unlikely that this case will achieve anything more than an appeal to the Supreme Court. Until then, justice delayed is justice denied.

Posted by Judah in:  Human Rights   

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