## Facts

- After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizing military force against those responsible for or aiding the attacks.
- The U.S. military detained foreign nationals captured abroad and transferred many to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a site under U.S. “complete jurisdiction and control” though Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty.
- The Department of Defense created Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) to determine whether Guantánamo detainees were “enemy combatants.”
- Petitioners, foreign nationals held at Guantánamo, were designated enemy combatants by CSRTs and filed habeas corpus petitions in federal district court challenging the legality of their detention.
- Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), restricting habeas jurisdiction for Guantánamo detainees and channeling limited review of CSRT determinations to the D.C. Circuit.
- Congress later enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), which barred federal court jurisdiction over habeas petitions by aliens detained as enemy combatants and broadly barred other detention-related actions.
- The D.C. Circuit held the MCA withdrew jurisdiction over pending habeas cases and that the Suspension Clause did not protect Guantánamo detainees because they were aliens held outside U.S. sovereign territory.

## Issues

1. Whether the Suspension Clause protects noncitizen detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, notwithstanding the absence of formal U.S. sovereignty over the base.
2. Whether MCA § 7, which strips habeas jurisdiction and substitutes limited D.C. Circuit review of CSRT determinations, is an unconstitutional suspension of the writ because it fails to provide an adequate and effective substitute.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held that the Suspension Clause has effect at Guantánamo and that petitioners possess the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus.
- The Court held MCA § 7 unconstitutional as applied because it operates as a suspension of the writ without the constitutionally required conditions and without an adequate substitute.
- The Court concluded petitioners are entitled to pursue habeas review in federal district court; it did not decide whether any petitioner was properly classified as an enemy combatant.

## Legal Principles

- The Suspension Clause protects a constitutional privilege of habeas corpus that Congress may curtail only by a valid suspension (rebellion or invasion) or by providing an adequate and effective substitute for habeas review.
- The reach of the Suspension Clause is not controlled by formal territorial sovereignty alone; it turns on functional factors, including the detainee’s status and the adequacy of status-determination procedures, the nature of the detention site, and practical barriers to judicial review.
- Where the United States exercises long-term, exclusive control over a detention site and judicial review is practicable, noncitizens detained there may invoke constitutional habeas protections.
- A substitute for habeas must allow meaningful review of the legal and factual basis for detention and must provide a remedy capable of addressing unlawful detention, including authority sufficient to order release or comparable relief.
- A review scheme limited to a closed administrative record, constrained fact development, evidentiary presumptions favoring the government, and uncertain remedial power may be inadequate to replace habeas.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Guantánamo detainees have a constitutional right to seek habeas corpus under the Suspension Clause and that Congress’s jurisdiction-stripping provision in MCA § 7 was unconstitutional because the substituted CSRT/DTA review process did not provide an adequate and effective replacement for habeas review.


Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008)