Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
On Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007
Senate Judiciary Committee Markup
June 7, 2007
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to support the Habeas Corpus Restoration
Act of 2007. It amends the deeply flawed Military Commissions Act
of 2006 to restore the Great Writ of habeas corpus, ensuring that
no person will be subject to indefinite detention without charge based
on the President’s sole discretion.
Let me be clear: I strongly support efforts to bring terrorists to
justice. This Administration has too long been distracted from that
important task by the war in Iraq. Resetting our sights on pursuing
global terrorist networks is long overdue. But whatever long-term
counterterrorism strategy America pursues, it will be undermined if
we fail to adhere to our longstanding American values.
Mr. Chairman, this bill is part of our counterterrorism efforts,
because we cannot begin to make a dent in terrorist recruitment and
plotting worldwide without sending a clear message that the United
States will adhere to the principles that make our country great.
Our faithful adherence to checks and balances, fundamental fairness,
and the rule of law has been and always will be one of our greatest
strengths.
Last year, the President agreed to consult with Congress on the makeup
of military commissions only because he was compelled to do so by
the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Congress should have taken
that opportunity to pass legislation that would allow these trials
to proceed in accordance with our laws and our values. Instead, we
passed the Military Commissions Act, allowing the government to seize
aliens on American soil or abroad, designate them “enemy combatants,”
and, in one of the worst provisions of that bill, detain them indefinitely
with no opportunity to challenge their detention in court.
It is time to start to undo the harm this legislation has caused.
This bill will ensure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the ability
to challenge their detention in court. Habeas corpus is a fundamental
recognition that in America, the government does not have the power
to detain people indefinitely and arbitrarily. And that in America,
the courts must have the power to review the legality of executive
detention decisions. As a group of retired judges wrote to Congress
last year, habeas corpus “safeguards the most hallowed judicial
role in our constitutional democracy – ensuring that no man
is imprisoned unlawfully.”
The Military Commissions Act fundamentally violated that historical
and constitutional guarantee, putting detainees beyond the reach of
the law
Mr. Chairman, this state of affairs is unacceptable, and it almost
surely violates our Constitution. But that determination will take
years of protracted litigation. The Supreme Court has declined to
review the D.C. Circuit’s decision on this issue, at least for
now, so it is all the more urgent that Congress act to resolve this
issue. We should restore the right to habeas corpus now. We must make
clear that our laws do not permit the government to detain people
– including people on U.S. soil -- indefinitely without court
review. This bill is an important first step in reasserting the primacy
of American values in our law. The elimination of habeas corpus in
the Military Commissions Act was a historic and tragic mistake. It
is time we correct it, and I congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator
Specter, for moving so quickly to take this important step.
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