quote "Law Lord castigates US justice Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial by 'kangaroo court' Clare Dyer, legal correspondent Wednesday November 26, 2003 The Guardian A senior law lord last night delivered a scathing attack on the US government's and the American courts' treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, branding it "a monstrous failure of justice". Lord Steyn, one of the most senior judges in Britain's highest court, described the military tribunal for trying the detainees as a "kangaroo court". The term, he said, implied "a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgment by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice". He asked whether the British government should not "make plain, publicly and unambiguously, our condemnation of the utter lawlessness" at Guantanamo Bay. unquote continued http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1093139,00.html quote "Each of the justifications which the US has employed for its Cuban camp was systematically taken apart by the law lord. The lecture won immediate applause from international lawyers. Moreover, it will no doubt be replayed at length in the US supreme court, which has finally declared itself ready to review the right of the president to imprison the suspects. The idea will not play in the White House but Americans should heed the judge's warning that the continuing denial of justice for the foreign suspects would lead to the gradual erosion of fundamental civil rights of US citizens. " unquote http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1094029,00.html
People the law forgot It is almost two years since the Guantanamo prison camp opened. Its purpose is to hold people seized in the 'war on terror' and defined by the Bush administration as enemy combatants - though many appear to have been bystanders to the conflict. Images of Camp Delta's orange-jumpsuited, manacled detainees have provoked international outrage. But the real horror they face isn't physical hardship, it is the threat of infinite confinement, without trial or access to legal representation. James Meek has spent the past month talking to former inmates and some of those involved in operating the Pentagon's Kafkaesque justice system. He has built an unprecedented picture of life on the base, which we present in this special issue ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1098604,00.html