A federal appeals court today turned away a challenge to force-feeding Guantanamo Bay detainees on a hunger strike, but left the door open to legal efforts aimed at ending the practice.
The three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a bid for a preliminary injunction to stop force-feeding at the US Naval base in Cuba. But two of the three judges ruled that the detainees did have the right to challenge the force-feeding rejecting two district court rulings that the judiciary didn't have jurisdiction in the case.
The lawyer for the detainees, Jon B. Eisenberg, called that "a big win for us," because it lets the detainees go back to the district court and press the case.
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"This decision establishes that the federal courts have the power to stop the mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay," Eisenberg wrote in an email. "The court of appeals has given us the green light to continue our challenge to the detainees' force-feeding as being unconstitutionally abusive. We intend to do that."
A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department was reviewing the decision.
Writing for the court, Judge David Tatel said that Congress never specifically blocked courts from hearing Guantanamo detainees' challenges to their conditions.
Tatel, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, added that the circuit precedent "establishes that one in custody may challenge the conditions of his confinement in a petition for habeas corpus" the legal principle, enshrined in the Constitution, which allows courts to determine whether a prisoner is being held illegally.
Judge Thomas Griffith, an appointee of President George W. Bush, joined Tatel, but the third judge on the panel, Stephen F Williams, said the lower court judges properly ruled they didn't have jurisdiction.
