The U.S. Justice Department has abandoned its fight over proposed rules governing attorney conduct at Guantánamo Bay naval facility, dropping the case before an appeals court could dig into the dispute. Justice Department lawyers lodged the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in November, setting up a legal fight over a judge’s ruling in which the proposal was rejected as unnecessary and an “illegitimate exercise” of executive power.
The proposed rules, giving more control to the military command of the naval base, would have applied to lawyers representing detainees whose cases are no longer pending. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, in Washington, questioned the need for changing a scheme that had been in place since 2004 (NYLJ, Sept. 10).”The old maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ would seem to caution against altering a counsel-access regime that has proven safe, efficient and eminently workable,” Lamberth said in his ruling. “Indeed, the government had no answers when the court posed this question in oral arguments.”
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