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Detainee Case Taken to U.S. Supreme Court

Lawyers for a group of Chinese nationals held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with no hope of release are taking the rare step of asking the Supreme Court to intervene immediately, saying only the highest court in the land can resolve the constitutional crisis their case presents. Their case is among nearly 200 legal challenges filed since 2004 on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainees who are contesting the legality of their imprisonment.

Attorneys for the detained Uighurs, or Muslim natives of western China who oppose their country`s Communist rule, were scheduled to petition the court as early as last Tuesday. They seek a break in the impasse created when U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled last month that the Bush administration`s "Kafka-esque" detention of the Uighurs was illegal. At the same tim, he simultaneously determined that his court lacked the power to overrule the president and free them.

It is highly unusual for parties in a case to seek a hearing before the Supreme Court at this stage of the legal process. But the attorneys for the Uighurs are asking the Supreme Court to let their clients skip the normal year-long process of first appealing to the D.C. federal appeals court, and resolve the conundrum of a ruling without relief and what they call the "absurdity" of illegal imprisonment without end. The Uighurs do not wish to go back to China, where they would probably be persecuted.