April 03, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1428

WASHINGTON, April 2: The US Supreme Court on Monday shut the doors of American civil courts on Guantanamo Bay prisoners who wanted to challenge the Bush administration’s decision to keep them in prolonged confinements without charge.

The decision means the court will not rule on the constitutionality of an anti-terror law the Bush administration pushed through Congress last year. The law forbids Guantanamo inmates from challenging their detention in US civil courts.

Many of the 380 inmates at the US naval base in Cuba are now in their sixth year of captivity without charges. None has yet been able to challenge their detention in a US civil court.

The Supreme Court also endorsed a provision of the 2006 law that scales back judicial powers during a war, such as the current US-led war against terror.

The decision, however, doesn't preclude the court from taking up the issue down the road.

The justices, voting 6-3, left intact the decision of a federal appeals court in Washington in February which said that the 2006 anti-terror bars federal judges from considering so-called habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantanamo prisoners. Four justices must agree before the court will take up a case for argument.

The rejection leaves President Bush, at least for now, with broad authority to control the fate of the Guantanamo prisoners. The court's majority opinion was that “the will of Congress” should prevail and that habeas corpus did not apply to prisoners at Guantanamo.

Two justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy, said they voted not to hear the two detainee appeals “despite the obvious importance of the issues.”

They said the detainees should first go before military tribunals, leaving open the possibility of later Supreme Court review to consider whether the military “has unreasonably delayed” those proceedings. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented. Justice Breyer wrote for the three that “these questions deserve this court's immediate attention.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted to reject the appeals. They made no comment.

In three previous cases since the Sept. 11 attacks, the court put limits on the president's power to determine the fate of Guantanamo detainees without consulting the judiciary. In the latest case, two groups of detainees asked the high court to intervene again.