By Mark Kukis for Time
...Obama has vowed to close Guantánamo and reject the Military Commissions Act, the 2006 law underpinning the ongoing Guantánamo tribunals. But major hurdles stand in the way of doing so, even for a new President with a clear mandate....
First, what do you do with the roughly 255 people currently imprisoned at Guantánamo — a group of whom only 23 have been charged? If Obama wanted to move as swiftly as possible to close Guantánamo, the strongest step he could take as President would be to simply shutter the camp by Executive Order and transfer all of the detainees to prison sites inside the U.S. At that point, in theory, the detainees would face four possible fates: being charged with offenses that could be tried in federal courts; court-marshaled according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice; turned over to the governments of their native countries; or simply released...
There are no good options for trying the roughly 14 others the government appears intent on prosecuting, because the Bush Administration has held them for so many years by Executive Orders in contravention of regular U.S. criminal and military law...
Obama may consider working to create so-called national-security courts, which would essentially be a hybrid tribunal system blending military and civilian criminal law. Those who support the creation of national-security courts say that only a new, carefully constructed system can effectively deal with issues like classified evidence and other matters that sometimes snarl proceedings in regular criminal and military courts...
The emerging Obama transition team has yet to spell out its plans for closing Guantánamo officially...But there's little doubt that the Guantánamo problem Bush leaves behind for Obama will be one of the hardest the President-elect will face when he finally sits in the Oval Office.
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