ACLJ Files Brief with Supreme Court Backing President Bush's Decision to Hold Terrorism...

News Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 2004

The American Center for Law and Justice, along with its international affiliate organizations, today filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court supporting the position of the Department of Justice that the

"This is a critical case involving the separation of powers," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. "The President and the Department of Justice have acted responsibly and are complying with both domestic and international law in the handling of these detainees. To permit these detainees to have access to our court system is not only wrong, but there is no legal precedent for doing so. As a nation at war, the United States is doing what it must do - in a lawful and constitutional manner - to protect the citizens of the United States from those individuals and groups determined to launch further acts of terrorism against Americans."

The ACLJ today filed its amicus brief on behalf of itself and its two affiliate organizations: The European Centre for Law and Justice, an organization that deals with human rights issues in Europe and based in Strasbourg, France, and the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice, a human rights organization based in Moscow, Russia.

The brief, posted at www.aclj.org, contends that the detainees - which include members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda - are unlawful combatants - and therefore not subject to the protections afforded by the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War. Further, the brief contends that President Bush, as commander and chief of U.S. Armed Forces, acted appropriately and constitutionally in ordering the detainees to be held in Cuba.

The brief states that the detainees challenging the federal government's actions "seek to subvert the well-established authority of the Executive to deal with the exigencies of war in all its facets and to transfer such authority to the Judiciary. Yet, neither the domestic law of the United States nor the 1949 Geneva Conventions permit captured enemy combatants to challenge the legality of their detention in the domestic courts of the detaining power - the United States - during wartime."

The brief also disputes the charge that the detainees are being held "indefinitely" in Cuba. "At the beginning of any war, it is impossible to know with any certainty when the war will end and the captives will be set free," states the brief. "Merely because the end of the war is not currently in sight and the end may not occur for years is no legitimate basis to claim that Petitioners are being held indefinitely in violation of their rights. Petitioners are being detained to ensure that they do not rejoin the fight. When the war ends and the fighting is over, however, captives must be either repatriated or tried for violations of the laws of war."

The Supreme Court has not yet set a date regarding when it will hear oral arguments in the cases of Rasul v. Bush and Al Odah v. Bush. (Case Nos. 03-334 & 03-343)

The American Center for Law and Justice is a public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law and committed to upholding the integrity of our constitutional system of government based on the separation of powers. The ACLJ is based in Washington, D.C. and website address: www.aclj.org.