Nowhere does the U.S. Constitution provide a right of access to U.S. courts for foreign enemy combatants who commit their violent acts overseas, are captured overseas and are detained overseas.
So it was a relief when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently upheld that principle. The court ruled that enemy combatants being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts.
Previously, by a 5-4 ruling, the liberal majority on the U.S. Supreme Court wrongly permitted enemy combatants held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba to challenge their imprisonment in our federal court system. It is not at all clear how the Supreme Court will rule if the new decision denying detainees in Afghanistan access to U.S. courts is appealed, as it is expected to be. But we hope the high court would uphold the lower court’s ruling.
Anyone captured and detained overseas by the United States ought to be given humane treatment. But opening our federal courts to ceaseless challenges by overseas enemy combatants would create a “right” that simply does not exist constitutionally.