The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will decide whether the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 retroactively stripped the court of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus cases challenging detentions at the military prison in Cuba. Lawyers representing the detainees argued that the new law does not apply to pending cases, while the government has maintained that all cases essentially should be wiped away.

Under the Detainee Act, there are only two types of challenges that can be made in a federal court. Both must be filed in a federal Court of Appeals and neither allows for challenges to conditions of confinement. They are:

• a challenge to being designated by the military as an enemy combatant
• Appealing a verdict in a future military tribunal

Besides being unable to file a claim alleging torture, the detainees are not allowed to seek their freedom, even when they have been found eligible for release by the military.

Currently, the military is holding 10 detainees at Guantanamo Bay who have been cleared for release, and federal courts have been powerless to order them freed.

Then there are the two Uyghurs -- Chinese Muslims-- who have been found not to have terrorist ties but are still being held because they can't go back to China where they would be tortured and the U.S. won't let them live here.

Attorneys for the Uighurs have taken the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to rule before the appellate court enters a judgment, arguing that their clients uniquely face indefinite detention even though they are innocent.

In a draft of the brief provided to The Washington Post, the UAA urges the court to allow the Uighur detainees to join the Uighur community in the Washington area, where they would live in a form of parole.

It's also too soon to get excited over the Pentagon's plan to issue a rule barring the use of evidence obtained by torture at military tribunal proceedings.

Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, who heads the office of military lawyers appointed to represent Guantanamo defendants, said ....Central to its effect...would be "who has the burden of proof" regarding allegations of torture -- the defense to prove it happened, or the prosecution to show it didn't. Commission rules still would permit hearsay statements, which, even with the change, could "be a mechanism to launder tortured evidence," Col. Sullivan said.

[Graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]