Mukasey: Congress should set rules for detainees
Washington -- Congress, not judges, should decide how to give Guantanamo Bay detainees their day in court, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey said today in calling for new laws governing how foreign terror suspects seek their release.
It's doubtful, however, that Congress will approve the legislation Mukasey wants before the end of the year. And the chief judge in Washington's federal court said he would not wait for Congress to act.
A federal court in Washington is currently working on rules for judicial hearings for about 200 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban foot soldiers who contend they're being illegally held at the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. A Supreme Court ruling last month gave the detainees the right to challenge their capture in U.S. civilian courts.
"With so many cases, there is a serious risk of inconsistent rulings and considerable uncertainty," Mukasey, himself a former federal judge, told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think-tank.
Left to the courts to decide, Mukasey said, many of the cases could wind up in appeals that would further delay the hearings. "It hardly takes a pessimist to expect that without guidance from the Congress, different judges on even the same court will disagree," he said.
Critics immediately called Mukasey's request an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court with legislation that also would face lengthy legal challenges. The court's June 12 ruling said Congress' earlier efforts to intervene in detainee cases were unconstitutional.
"What Mukasey is doing is a shocking attempt to drag us into years of further legal challenges and delays," said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The group has helped find lawyers to represent the detainees.
"Congress should be a part of the solution this time by letting the courts do their job," Warren said.
Mukasey said Justice Department attorneys hope to help and are available to assist Congress in crafting legislation. He said lawmakers should feel spurred, and not delayed, by the election year to pass the laws. Judges have said they want to set rules governing the detainees' hearings by year's end.
However, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said the issue may be "more responsibly addressed in the next Congress with a new president." Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), a Judiciary Committee member, called Mukasey's request "an attempt to create an election-year security issue where there isn't one."
