Constitutional Law

High Court Orders Appeals Court To Reconsider Detainees' Charges of Torture, Religious Bias

The justices also issued an order, 08-235, vacating a decision in Rasul, et al., v. Myers and remanding it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for “further consideration in light of Boumediene v. Bush ….” The high court in Boumediene found that detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan have the right to challenge their indefinite imprisonments in court. The D.C. Circuit Court had rejected claims of torture and religious bias from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Scotus Blog notes. The D.C. Circuit must now reconsider the detainees’ charges in light of the high court’s Boumediene ruling. Scotus Blog maintains that today’s high court action “will allow the new administration of President-elect Barack Obama to take a position on the years-long controversy over torture, and it raises the prospect that detainees might gain some rights other than the basic right – recognized in Boumediene – to go to court to challenge their long-term captivity.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).