Every

Administrative Review Board The Administrative Review Board is a United States military body that conducts an annual review of the detainees held by the United States in Camp Delta in the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The purpose of the Board is to revi ...

, run under the authority of the

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants The Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants, established in 2004 by the Bush administration's Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, is a United States military body responsible for organising Combatant St ...

, was commanded by a Presiding Officer. Like the

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...

s, also run by OARDEC, the Boards form were modeled after the

US Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

Army Regulation 190-8 Tribunal Military Police: Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees is the full title of a United States Army regulation usually referred to as AR 190-8, that lays out how the United States Army should treat captive ...

s, but differed in its mandate. All three procedures consisted of at least three officers, of whom the most senior was to be of

field grade A senior officer is an officer of a more senior grade in military or other uniformed services. In military organisations, the term may refer to any officer above junior officer rank, but usually specifically refers to the middle-ranking group of ...

. The AR 1900-8 Tribunals was to set out the details of how the US military was to comply with the US's obligations, under the

Third Geneva Convention The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was first adopted in 1929, but significantl ...

, to convene a "

competent tribunal Competent Tribunal is a term used in Article 5 paragraph 2 of the Third Geneva Convention, which states: ICRC commentary on competent tribunals The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary on Article 5 of the Third Geneva Con ...

" to determine the status of captives whose status was in doubt. Competent tribunals, like the AR 190-8 Tribunal, are authorized to determine that captives are innocent civilians, lawful combatants, or combatants who have violated the laws of war. According to the Geneva Conventions, innocent civilians should be immediately released; lawful combatants should enjoy the protections of POW status until hostilities are over; and only those determined to have violated the laws of war can face charges for hostile activity. The position of the

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

Presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...

was that captives apprehended during the "

war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...

" were not eligible for the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

ruled, in

Rasul v. Bush ''Rasul v. Bush'', 542 U.S. 466 (2004), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that foreign nationals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could petition federal courts for writs of ''habeas corpus ...

that captives could not be held indefinitely. Captives were to receive annual Administrative Review Board hearings, to determine if they continued to pose a threat to the US, or whether they continued to hold any intelligence value. In practice the

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

contains over one hundred captives who do not receive annual Administrative Review Board hearings, because their Combatant Status Review Tribunal had already been determined not to have been enemy combatants, or because an earlier Administrative Review Board had already determined that they should be released.

Role of the Presiding Officer

The Presiding Officers duties included: *The Presiding Officer chaired the hearings. *The Presiding Officer determined when evidence was admissible. *Presiding Officers would rule when the captive's testimony was off-topic, or when their behaviour was disruptive and they should be removed.

References

{{Reflist Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures