Court ruling a huge blow to Bush

THE US Supreme Court has ruled detainees held in the US military base at Guantanamo Bay have the right to appeal to federal courts in a fresh blow to the Bush administration.

The court ruled detainees in the US jail in southern Cuba “have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus,” in the third ruling on Guantanamo against the current administration.

By a vote of five to four, the court found that, even if the base was officially on Cuban territory, it was in fact operating as if it were on American soil and therefore the detainees have the same constitutional rights as all people living in the US.

The ruling should force detainees and their legal teams to demand that the government unveil the evidence against them to justify their continued detention.

The government has refused to do this, arguing it would be against the interests of national security.

It should also open the doors of the federal court system to 270 people held in the isolated base.

Detainees have long protested they had been mistreated and have questioned the very legality of the Guantanamo military tribunals.

The Supreme Court took up the issue of Guantanamo inmates in 2004 and again in 2006, ruling both times that detainees had a statutory — legal but not constitutional — right to contest their indefinite detention before an independent judge, a legal process known as habeas corpus. Urged by the Bush administration, Congress in 2006 passed legislation that forbid them from seeking justice in a federal court until they are judged by a special military tribunal.