Office of the President

Earlier in April, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit proposing new restrictions on counsel for Guantanamo detainees contesting decisions by Combatant Status Review Tribunals that they are properly detained as enemy combatants. The brief urges that counsel for the detainees be permitted only one visit to Guantanamo to meet with a client to obtain authorization to represent the detainee, and only up to three additional visits to assist the client to prepare a court challenge to the designation as enemy combatant. Under existing procedures, visits are not limited. The brief also argues that a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case should be permitted to read mail sent to him by his lawyer. News media reported on the brief April 25. ABA President Karen J. Mathis issued the following statement April 27.

"The ability of lawyers to confer with their clients and advocate for justice for those clients is a deeply imbedded principle of American democracy. Arbitrary restrictions concerning the number of times and the ways that lawyers may confer with their clients in Guantanamo, or in any court, would threaten competent representation without at all advancing national security. The principles of freedom, due process and justice are too critical to our national character to be abandoned in any manner."