Bar calls U.S. wrong on detainee lawyers
The group says the administration unfairly blames defense counsel for Guantanamo prison problems.
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is trying to evade responsibility for problems at the Guantanamo Bay prison by falsely blaming defense lawyers for the trouble, the New York City Bar says.
The group's president leveled the criticism in asking Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to abandon a Justice Department proposal to limit lawyers' access to the nearly 400 detainees.
In a court filing this month, the department said attorney access via the mail system had "enabled detainees' counsel to cause unrest on the base by informing detainees about terrorist attacks."
The mail system was "misused" to inform detainees about military operations in Iraq, activities of terrorist leaders, efforts in the war on terror, the Hezbollah attack on Israel, and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, the department said in this month's court filing.
"This is an astonishing and disingenuous assertion," the association president, Barry M. Kamins, wrote Gonzales.
Kamins said many detainees had been held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods and had lost hope of a fair hearing to demonstrate their innocence.
"Blaming counsel for the hunger strikes and other unrest is a continuation of a disreputable and unwarranted smear campaign against counsel," according to the letter Friday.
Kamins pointed to recent remarks by the former deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs, Charles Stimson. Stimson resigned after saying he found it shocking that lawyers at many top firms represented detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
The 137-year-old New York City Bar, with more than 23,000 members, is one of the oldest and largest lawyers' organizations in the country.
A Justice Department spokesman, Erik Ablin, said the department was reviewing the New York City Bar's letter.
Ablin pointed to the department's court papers that say the proposal on attorney access is well beyond what the Constitution and the law require.
The department wants to narrow the definition of "legal mail" and impose a three-visit rule on the number of face-to-face meetings once a detainee agrees to let an attorney represent him.
On Thursday, American Bar Association President Karen J. Mathis criticized "arbitrary restrictions concerning the number of times and the ways that lawyers may confer with their clients in Guantanamo." She said such practices at Guantanamo or in a court "would threaten competent representation without at all advancing national security."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments on the department's proposal May 15.