On December 5, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania intro­duced leg­is­la­tion (S. 4081) to restore the right to habeas cor­pus to those deemed to be ene­my com­bat­ants and who are fac­ing tri­al before mil­i­tary com­mis­sions, includ­ing those being detained at the U.S. Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Habeas cor­pus pro­vides an avenue for inmates in deten­tion to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of their con­fine­ment. The roots of this pro­tec­tion go back to ear­ly English law and the right to habeas cor­pus is guar­an­teed in the U.S. Constitution. The Military Commissions Act of 2006, passed in September 2006, pre­clud­ed ene­my com­bat­ants from pur­su­ing habeas cor­pus relief and barred cas­es decid­ed by mil­i­tary com­mis­sions from habeas review. Those to be tried before mil­i­tary com­mis­sions could face the death penal­ty.

​“The Constitution of the United States is explic­it that habeas cor­pus may be sus­pend­ed only in time of rebel­lion or inva­sion,” observed Sen. Specter. ​“We are suf­fer­ing nei­ther of those alter­na­tives at the present time. We have not been invad­ed, and there has not been a rebel­lion.”

​“This bill would restore the great writ of habeas cor­pus, a cor­ner­stone of American lib­er­ty for hun­dreds of years that Congress and the President rolled back in an unprece­dent­ed and unnec­es­sary way with September’s Military Commissions Act,” said Senator Leahy.
(See Congressional Record: December 5, 2006 (Senate), Page S11197-S11199, intro­duc­to­ry state­ments of Sens. Leahy and Specter to the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2006). See Military Commissions.

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