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Senate committee defense budget includes military commission reforms

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Senate Armed Services Committee announced Friday the approval an appropriations bill that would alter the rules of evidence used in military commission trials. The version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which cleared the committee unanimously, would add language to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 reforming the use of classified, coerced, and hearsay evidence and allow defendants greater access to exculpatory evidence. Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said that the changes were necessary for the military commissions to be considered "regularly constituted courts" within the meaning of the 2006 Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. The bill now moves to the full Senate for approval. Last month, US President Barack Obama announced that he would use the controversial military commissions system to try some Guantanamo Bay detainees. The move drew criticism from human rights groups, which called the plan "fatally flawed," continuing a long line of criticism of the commissions for admitting some evidence that is barred from federal court, including hearsay or coerced confessions. In January, Obama issued an executive order directing the military prison be closed "as soon as practicable and no later than one year from the date of this order."

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on June 26, 2009 (boomark / email).