“We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right”

Magna Carta (Chapter 40, section 29 of the 1225 reissue)

The precursor to constitutional law, the Magna Carta, paved the way for such constitutional documents as the United States Constitution. Some such provision within the Magna Carta were so influential they found their way in word or spirit into the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1773 and would become the foundations of what would become known as the “Sixth Amendment of the Constitution” in the United States of America. Specifically the Sixth Amendment begins “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial” a basic necessity guaranteed to those being accused of criminal activity.

This provision was deemed important as ‘an important safeguard to prevent undue and oppressive incarceration prior to trial, to minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation and to limit the possibility that long delay will impair the ability of an accused to defend himself.’

In an era of changing definitions to suit the legal needs of the accusers, we have seen the blatant disregard for the very law that the American government promotes as the backbone to their society.

In order to escape the legal entanglements of kidnapping, torturing and holding indefinitely foreign nationals seized under the guise of a “War on Terrorism” the United States of America has held these people under the ambiguous and changing term “enemy combatant” in a specially created prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The reason for creating a prison outside the United States was simple and clear – To avoid US scrutiny while picking and choosing what laws to use, since technically the prison lies outside of US judicial jurisdiction.

Every attempt to rationalize the irrational in this regard seems to fail. Prisoners in Guantanamo are not to be tried under US judicial codes, and therefore are not guaranteed speedy trial, or an attorney of their own choosing to name but a few rights abandoned by this move.

Realizing that they were to avoid US rights given to defendants, the Government changed their classifications to enemy combatants, and held them in a foreign country at a military base/prison, yet they also refuse to follow basic humanitarian rights, and rights of Prisoners of War guaranteed by the Geneva Convention of 1949.

Every attempt to secure rights for the prisons illegally held in Guantanamo were shut down by The Military Commissions Act which mandated that the Guantanamo Bay captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding habeas corpus petitions were stayed.

On June 12, 2008 in the case of Boumediene v. Bush the United States supreme Court ruled that The Military Commissions Act could not remove the right of the Guantanamo prisoners to access the federal judicial system, and in a reversal of stance, the Bush Administration appointed Federal District Judge Richard J. Leon, who had previously ruled in 2005 that these men had no habeas corpus rights, issued a surprising defeat to the Administrations holding and classification of such men.

During the first actual hearing on the government’s evidence for holding such detainees the Justice Department was required to present its full justification for holding specific detainees, Judge Leon ruled that government’s case relied exclusively on information obtained from “a classified document from an unnamed source” and added that “To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court’s obligation,”.

Judge Richard J. Leon also urged the government not to fight the ruling since an appeal could take up to 2 years, “Seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer to a question so important is, in my judgment, more than plenty,” Zachary Katznelson, legal director at Reprieve, a British legal group that represents detainees added that “The decision by Judge Leon lays bare the scandalous basis on which Guantanamo has been based — slim evidence of dubious quality,”

The story does not end here though, Robert C. Kirsch, from the law firm Wilmer Hale, said the case showed “the human cost of what can happen when mistakes are made at the highest levels of our government, and no one has the courage to acknowledge those mistakes.”

Now when detainees find themselves suddenly freed after so long of detention numerous questions await them and the global society as a whole. Virtually all of the detainees countries of origin will not accept them back because of the stigma of being seized by the US government and classified as an enemy combatant, so where are these people to go now? This was exemplified last month when another federal judge in Washington, Ricardo M. Urbina, ordered the release of 17 ethnic Uighur detainees from China.

But Judge Urbina did not hold a hearing on the evidence because the government conceded that the men were not enemy combatants, and said it was continuing to hold the Uighurs because it could not find a country willing to accept them.

Imagine that you have been held for 7 years, over 2500 days of your life has been taken away from you; imagine you have lost everything you know, waking up to abuse and oppression with no hope in sight. Imagine after 7 years the shackles are released and you suddenly free, but you remain unsure what that means anymore.

Now these men find themselves without home, after loosing seven years of their life. Uprooted from all they know with no family and friends, they are left to beg acceptance from a foreign country in which they may or may not know the language, customs or culture, and in which they may or may not even be able to find work to support themselves.

How is this emotional scaring going to affect the men who are released? Will they ever be able to effectively integrate into normal society again? It is this loss of hope and desperation that is creating such hostility especially towards the ones they feel are responsible. If the US government did not detain terrorists, they may have created them.