12Jan04-Peter Fray-MPs to challenge US over detainees
By Peter Fray
Europe Correspondent
London
January 12, 2004
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Amnesty International members protest in Barcelona in support of Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Picture: AFP
An influential group of about 140 British peers and MPs, including three former Labour ministers, is expected this week to join a legal challenge to the US Government's holding of foreign nationals, including two Australians, at the Guantanamo Bay army base.
The unprecedented move is in support of 16 detainees, including Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, who claim they have the right to challenge their indefinite detention in an impartial civil court.
The British group is expected to argue that under the US constitution, the Bush Administration is fully accountable for its actions to the US Supreme Court and that serious doubts exist over the legality of detaining many of the 660 prisoners. The cross-party group, acting as concerned citizens, consists of more than 54 peers, including four retired law lords, and 85 MPs, among them former foreign secretary Robin Cook and former ministers Clare Short and Chris Smith.
A member of the group, Lord Donaldson, a former master of the rolls, told the BBC the situation at the army base was a "complete negation of the rule of law". "That you can have a place within the jurisdiction of the United States Government - it is a sovereign base there - where they can do what they like unfettered by law. It is a situation which could not arise in this country."
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The group is expected to petition the United States' highest court on Wednesday using an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, which allows interested parties to provide information to a particular case.
It will single out the nine British prisoners for particular attention but, the Guardian newspaper reported, generally argue there are serious legal flaws over the detention of many Guantanamo detainees.
The US Supreme Court will decide whether the detainees have the right to bring their cases to a US court, which in turn could examine the legality of their detention.
The Bush Administration recently indicated it is prepared to release some of the nine British detainees who have been held at the base for up to two years without charge, trial or any mechanism for release.
The US ambassador at large on war crimes, Pierre-Richard Prosper, has indicated some detainees could be repatriated if governments were able to adequately "manage" them after their return. British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently said he hoped to have positive news on the British detainees "shortly".
The peers and MPs will argue that some of the British detainees were innocently caught up in the Afghan war and others were seized in foreign countries and are being held by the US on unsound legal grounds.
The brief was prepared by New York firm Coudert Brothers, British firm Clifford Chance and three leading QCs.
The case brought by the 16 detainees, who include the Australians, Britons and Kuwaitis, is due to be heard next month or in March, with judgement scheduled by the end of June.
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