Third Ruling In Favor Of Guantanamo Bay Detainees Issued By U.S. Supreme Court

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - A U.S. Supreme Court decision issued Thursday ruled foreign terror suspects being held by the military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.

On a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court held that the Defense Department was in fact violating the suspects' rights by holding them indefinitely, even if they aren't technically on U.S. soil.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

The ruling is the Supreme Court's third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of Guantanamo Bay inmates. The facility has 270 prisoners kept at bay on suspicion of terrorism and links to groups like the al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Some of them have been detained for over 6 years without charges.

Aside from upholding the Constitutional rights of the detainees, the Supreme Court also declared the system which classified the prisoners as enemy combatants and the review mechanism itself are inadequate.

Justice Kennedy led Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Roberts criticized the majority ruling because it destroyed "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained in this country as enemy combatants." Scalia expressed reservation that with the U.S. ongoing battle against radical Islamists, the Supreme Court's ruling "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

On two decisions, the Supreme Court had stated those detained at Guantanamo Bay without charges could file a case with civilian courts to have the government justify their continued detention. For both rulings, the Republican-controlled administration and Congress amended the law to prevent the detainees from bringing their cases to civilian courts.