SAN FRANCISCO, June 16: The Supreme Court decision upholding the right of habeas corpus for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners is likely to restore the habeas corpus relief to about 12 million permanent residents or Green Card holders in the United States.

In October 2006, for the first time in the history of the United States the right of habeas corpus was curtailed for the permanent residents when President George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act (MCA).

This law created two classes of persons inside the United States, citizens with rights and non-citizens i.e. 12 million permanent residents without rights.

Last Thursday, in a historic decision the US Supreme Court with a 5-4 majority decision struck down that section of the Military Commissions Act because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas despite the fact that the Constitution permits suspension of that writ only “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.”

The 2006 MCA Act said: “No court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined ... to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”

The MCA not only barred the men held at Guantánamo Bay from challenging their detention in court, but it closed the courthouse door to non-citizens (Green Card holders) who are arrested in US and held by the military as a possible “unlawful enemy combatant.”

Not surprisingly, the term “unlawful enemy combatant” basically includes anyone the president deems a problem. The MCA also defined this term broadly to include not just terrorists and fighters, but also people — including American citizens — who have “materially supported hostilities against the United States.”

The right to habeas corpus is fundamental to American law and cannot be suspended except in times of national emergency, the majority decision said.

“The framers (of the Constitution) viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the decision.

The cases decided last Thursday, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, were brought on behalf of 37 foreigners who remain among the approximately 300 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. All were captured on foreign soil and have been designated enemy combatants.

They’ve proclaimed their innocence and for years have asked United States federal courts for a chance to challenge their captivity.

The detainees at the centre of the case decided on Thursday are not all typical of the people confined at Guantánamo, the majority of whom were captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But the man who gave the case its title, Lakhdar Boumediene, is one of six Algerians who immigrated to Bosnia in the 1990’s and were legal residents there.

They were arrested by Bosnian police within weeks of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on suspicion of plotting to attack the United States embassy in Sarajevo.

The Supreme Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered them released three months later for lack of evidence, whereupon the Bosnian police seized them and turned them over to the United States military, which sent them to Guantánamo.

American Muslim civil right groups have welcomed the US Supreme Court decision upholding the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo prisoners and others. American Muslim Voice Founding Executive Director, Samina Faheem Sundas, said the US Constitutional values have once again stood the test of time and the challenges of power. Thursday’s ruling is a victory for due process and the rule of law,” she added.

However, the Republican presidential candidate John McCain has sharply denounced the Supreme Court decision. ‘I think it’s one of the worst decisions in history,’ McCain said.

Tellingly, McCain was one of the authors of the 2006 Military Commissions Act which denied the Guantanamo Bay detainees and 12 million permanent residents in the United States the right of habeas corpus.