法律英語導讀(11)

BREAKING NEWS ~ Supreme Court to hear challenge to Gitmo tribunals

　　[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the Bush administration’s use of military tribunals [JURIST news archive] for foreign terror suspects. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [PDF certiorari petition] comes on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which held [PDF opinion] in July that Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees may be tried by military commissions [JURIST report], overturning a lower court decision [JURIST report] that military commissions were not competent to determine whether the detainee was a prisoner of war. The case involves Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who allegedly served as a driver for Osama bin Laden, and the lower court ruled that Hamdan had not been found by a competent tribunal to be or not to be a prisoner of war and that he was due the full protections of a prisoner of war under the Third Geneva Convention [text]. The district court further held that the military commission rules were not in keeping with those for a court-martial due a POW. The appeals court ruled that because Hamdan was a member of al Qaeda, the Geneva Conventions did not apply to him and he could not assert the unlawfulness of the military commissions on that basis. Late last month, a group of 450 law professors circulated a statement [PDF text] urging the Court to grant certiorari in the case, saying the Court must "the relationship between the President’s constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief and the existing constitutional, statutory, and international rules and tribunals that govern the conduct of war." Additional case documents are available from the lead counsel for Hamdan, including the government brief opposing certiorari [PDF], and several amicus briefs. The Hamdan case was the focus of a recent online symposium in the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty. AP has more.

號外：最高法院將審理關塔那摩軍事法庭合法性一案

　　美國最高法院星期一同意審理布什當局讓軍事法院審理外國恐怖主義嫌犯是否合法一案。漢姆丹訴拉姆斯菲爾德一案源于哥倫比亞地區(qū)巡回法院上訴法院的上訴裁定，上訴法院7月份裁定關塔那摩灣的拘留者可以由特別軍事法庭審判，推翻了下級法院的判決。而下級法院的判決是特別軍事法庭不能決定拘留者是否是戰(zhàn)犯。本案涉及薩姆里·阿莫德·漢姆丹，此人聲稱只是奧薩姆·本·拉登的司機，因而下級法院判決特別軍事法庭不能決定漢姆丹是否是戰(zhàn)俘，他應該受到第三日內瓦公約的完全保護。地區(qū)法院進而裁決由于是戰(zhàn)俘，特別軍事法庭規(guī)則不適用。上訴法院裁定因為漢姆丹是基地組織成員，日內瓦公約對其不適用，他不能在此基礎上宣稱特別軍事法庭審判不合法。上月末，450位法學教授發(fā)表聲明，敦促最高法院調審此案，聲稱鑒于總統(tǒng)作為軍隊總司令的憲法權力和現(xiàn)有的憲法、制定法、國際規(guī)則及審理戰(zhàn)俘的特別法庭的關系，最高法院有必要審理此案。其他案件相關文件可以從漢姆丹的首席律師處獲得，包括政府反對移送的簡要聲明和幾個法庭之友的簡要聲明。漢姆丹一案是紐約大學法律與自由學報最近在網(wǎng)上舉辦的一個研討會的焦點。美聯(lián)社對此有更多報道