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Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in , such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal. Under U.S. military regulations, a Tribunal would be composed of: :Three Commissioned Officer s; a written record of proceedings; proceedings shall be open with certain exceptions; persons whose status is to be determined shall be advised of their rights at the beginning of their hearings, allowed to attend all open sessions, allowed to call witnesses if reasonably available, and to question those witnesses called by the Tribunal, and to have a right to testify; and a tribunal shall determine status by a Preponderance Of Evidence . Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees , '' U.S. Army Regulation 190-8'', October 1997 Possible determinations are: #Enemy Prisoner of War. #Recommended Retained Personnel (RP), entitled to EPW protections, who should be considered for certification as a medical, religious, or volunteer aid society RP. #Innocent civilian who should be immediately returned to his home or released. #Civilian Internee who for reasons of operational security, or probable cause incident to criminal investigation, should be detained. "COMPETENT TRIBUNALS" IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DETAINEES HELD AT GUANTANAMO BAY This term began to receive a lot of attention when President George W. Bush announced that the United States would follow the Geneva Conventions as it was strictly interpreted, and that the War In Afghanistan did not fall within that purview. As such, President Bush stated that fighters captured in the war in Afghanistan would be treated as " Unlawful Combatant s". Critics claimed that signatories to the Geneva Conventions, like the United States, are obliged to treat all captured combatants as if they qualified for POW status, until a "competent tribunal" considers their case and determines that they don't qualify for POW status. The Supreme Court set aside this question in the case . It reserved judgement on Article 5 with its competent tribunals. COMBATANT STATUS REVIEW TRIBUNAL AS COMPETENT TRIBUNALS See Also: Unlawful combatant No-hearing hearings Following the 2004 Hamdi V. Rumsfeld ruling the Bush administration began using Combatant Status Review Tribunal s to determine the status of detainees. The Bush administration tried to keep secret the identity of all the Guantanamo detainees. But some detainees' identities leaked out. Sympathetic lawyers secured permission from those detainees' families, and mounted legal challenges to try to secure their human rights. The Bush administration lost, and was forced to institute Combatant Status Review Tribunal. The reviews determined only 38 detainees were not illegal combatants. Then, through some kind of mix-up, '', March 27 , 2005 Critics examined its contents. It was hundreds of pages long. All but one of the documents in Kurnaz's dossier established his innocence -- established that there was no reason to believe he had any association with terrorism. The lone exception was unsigned, and contained only a vague accusation. This lone memo did not supply any evidence to back up its accusation that Kurnaz was acquainted with a suicide bomber -- and the memo didn't even get that suicide bomber's name correctly. Critics argued that since a single vague accusation had been enough to keep a detainee imprisoned, if one assumed his case was typical, it was reasonable to believe that many other detainees the reviews determined were illegal combatants may have been just as questionable. Further, the '', February 8 2006 For this, and other reasons, opponents argued that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not constitute a competent tribunal as mandated by the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that this was irrelevant, but it also ruled that the CSRT was not legal without congressional authorization. In response the Military Commissions Act was adopted. "COMPETENT TRIBUNALS" DURING THE 1991 GULF WAR During the 1991 '' April 1992 SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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