Suit on Detainees’ Behalf Is Dismissed

A lawsuit demanding that Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba be given access to U.S. courts was dismissed Thursday by a federal judge in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz said the civil-rights advocates who brought the habeas corpus action had no relationship with the prisoners and therefore no right to represent them.

Moreover, he wrote, U.S. courts lack jurisdiction because the prisoners are being held on Cuban soil over which America has no sovereignty.

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who argued the petitioners’ case before Matz on Thursday, said the ad hoc group will appeal the ruling to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

“I think that on each of the issues raised by Judge Matz, that the law is on our side and that we’ll prevail on appeal,” Chemerinsky said outside court.

The 17-member Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers and Professors brought the lawsuit Jan. 20, contending that the Afghan prisoners were being held incommunicado and were denied access to legal counsel in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Convention articles governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

Organized by civil-rights attorney Stephen Yagman, the coalition includes at least 10 other lawyers, two journalists, three rabbis and a Christian pastor.

Named as defendants were President Bush; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Navy Secretary Gordon R. England; and 1,000 military personnel at Guantanamo.

The Defense Department has denied mistreating the nearly 300 captives of various nationalities it transported to Guantanamo, but has refused to classify them as prisoners of war. Such a designation would sharply curtail interrogation efforts.

Matz said he would consider only whether the coalition had a right to sue and whether a U.S. court was empowered to decide the case.

He said that “nothing in this ruling suggests that the captives are entitled to no legal protection whatsoever.”

Matz said there are circumstances under which a third party can file a habeas corpus petition on behalf of a prisoner who is unable to act on his own behalf.

That person must have a “significant relationship” with the prisoner, Matz said. In this case, he said, the coalition appears to have no relationship at all with any of the Guantanamo prisoners.

He questioned why the coalition made no effort to contact any detainees or their relatives.