I found a UPI article and posted an excerpt of it on a thread that is dedicated to the Senate's handling of the Gitmo habeas issue in general, as developing in the context of the Graham amendment that changed the pertinent jurisdictional statute. Same excerpt posted here ...
Court tackles new Gitmo detainee law
By PAMELA HESS AND SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Security and TerrorismWASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., is soliciting opinions on whether a new law denying the Guantanamo prisoners the right to challenge their detention in federal court applies retroactively to all those in custody.
If the court decides the law does apply across the board, many lawsuits filed by detainees against the Bush administration using the centuries-old common law principle of habeas corpus would come to an end. ...
The Supreme Court sidestepped that question in a related decision handed down in 2004, but it too may be forced to rule on it in a separate Guantanamo case -- Hamdan v. Rumsfeld -- to be argued before it in March. ...
According to Graham's office, some 160 cases involving 300 Guantanamo prisoners had already been filed with the D.C. circuit when the act became law.
The administration is arguing that the law applies retroactively as well, and said last week it wants all federal courts to dismiss all the Guantanamo cases before them.
Congress, however, is less clear on the matter.
Graham, a former military lawyer, sides with the White House but left room for the courts to arrive at their own decision.
"Under no circumstance did I intend... that existing lawsuits filed by enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be statutorily preserved. Nor do I believe a reasonable reading of the statute would lead to that conclusion. The intent of the language ... is that courts will decide in accord with their own rules, procedures and precedents whether to proceed in pending cases," he stated last week.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060110-051639-8337r