Boumediene v. Bush

Boumediene v. Bush
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 5, 2007 Decided June 12, 2008
Full case name	Lakhdar Boumediene, et al., Petitioners v. George W. Bush, President of the United States, et al.
Docket no.	06-1195
Citations	553 U.S. 723 (more) 128 S. Ct. 2229; 171 L. Ed. 2d 41; 2008 U.S. LEXIS 4887; 2008 WL 2369628; 76 U.S.L.W. 4406
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	476 F.3d 981 (D.C. Cir. 2007); cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1328 (2007); cert. granted on rehearing, 551 U.S. 1160 (2007).
Holding
Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention in United States courts. Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)) is unconstitutional.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence	Souter, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
U.S. Const Art. I, § 9 Military Commissions Act of 2006

Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The case underscored the essential role of habeas corpus as a safeguard against government overreach, ensuring that individuals cannot be detained indefinitely without the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control.^[6] The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.

On June 12, 2008, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 5–4 majority, holding that the prisoners had a right to the writ of habeas corpus under the United States Constitution (and in particular the Suspension Clause) and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was an unconstitutional suspension of that right. The ruling challenged the government’s assertion of unchecked executive power, emphasizing that such authority cannot override the fundamental protections guaranteed by the Constitution. The Court applied the Insular Cases, by the fact that the United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains de facto sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, to hold that the aliens detained as enemy combatants on that territory were entitled to the writ of habeas corpus protected in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. The lower court had expressly indicated that no constitutional rights (not merely the right to habeas) extend to the Guantanamo detainees, rejecting petitioners' arguments, but the Supreme Court held that fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution extend to the Guantanamo detainees as well.^[1] Invoking Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court concluded:

The Nation’s basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say 'what the law is'.

Along with Rasul v. Bush (2004), Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), this was a landmark case in the Court's detainee jurisprudence. The decision underscored the importance of due process and judicial oversight in safeguarding individual rights, even in the context of national security.