Summary of Boumediene v. Bush

Facts: In 2002, Lakhdar Boumediene and five other Algerian natives were apprehended by Bosnian police based upon the suspicions of U.S. intelligence officers that they were involved in the bombings of a U.S. embassy there.  The U.S. was given custody of the men, who were then immediately classified as enemy combatants and detained at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.  Boumediene filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus arguing that the U.S. government violated his Due Process Clause rights.  The U.S. District Court dismissed Boumediene’s claims on the grounds that he was not a U.S. citizen, and he was detained at an extra-territorial base, thus not entitling him to the same constitutional protections afforded to someone on U.S. soil. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling, but the U.S.S.C. reversed the ruling in Rasul v. Bush and indicated that foreign nationals, even if they are enemy combatants, have at least the right to challenge their enemy combatant status in court.  In kind, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act which stripped federal courts of the authority to hear habeas corpus cases from detainees who have been classified as enemy combatants as a means to apparently circumvent the Supreme Court ruling.

The detainees applied to the D.C. Circuit Court for a second time, arguing that Congress could not in essence retroactively change the rules of the game, and argued that even if it could, the Suspension Clause which states that, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it,” prevented the Congress from infringing on their rights because there was rebellion or invasion.  Since the MCA explicitly stated that it applied to all cases, with no exceptions, the Circuit Court affirmed the government’s right to legislate in such a way. The Court ruled that the Suspension Clause was more of a historical relic that only really applied to the circumstances surrounding the political and national security climate in 1789; at that time, it was believed the intent of the amendment was not to protect foreign nationals but citizens.  While it initially declined to hear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually decided to hear arguments regarding Boumediene’s claims in order to answer the question regarding foreign nationals and the right to due process in the context of detainment in extra-territorial bases.

Issue:  Several legal questions were presented.  They included the following:

Should courts interpret the MCA of 2006 to mean that they no longer have any jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions filed by foreign nationals detained at extra-territorial bases, in this case Guantanamo Bay?

If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, is the MCA of 2006 in violation of the Constitution’s Suspension Clause?

Are Guantanamo Bay detainees entitled to Fifth Amendment protections without due process of the law and consideration of the Geneva Conventions?

Do detainees have to invoke judicial review provision first or can they challenge them on other merits before invoking an actual review?

Holding: The Supreme Court ruled affirmatively for all of the questions.

Majority Opinion Reasoning:  The Court reasoned that prisoners, even enemy combatants, have a right to habeas corpus.  The Court reasoned that while Guantanamo Bay is a base located in Cuba, it is still territorially under the control of the United States government; therefore, the Constitution and all of its protections still apply, for it is essentially American soil.

Dissenting Opinion:  Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Scalia both dissented, simply asserting that foreign nationals, whether named enemy combatants or given another moniker, have never been afforded the right to habeas corpus as a matter of historical record, and thus there was no reason why it should be believed that in 2006 the contextual situation had changed.

Conclusion:  This case was significant because it enshrined the precedent that even enemy combatants have habeas corpus rights and that they cannot indefinitely be denied due process under the law simply because they are not citizens.  It should be noted however, that the federal government nevertheless maintains a considerable amount of latitude regarding practices concerning enemy detainment in extra-territorial settings, and practices such as rendition further complicate the issue.