April 2 (Bloomberg) -- A divided U.S. Supreme Court turned away two appeals from Guantanamo Bay inmates who sought to challenge their detentions in federal court, declining to question a law that scales back judicial wartime powers.

The justices, voting 6-3, today left intact a lower court decision that said the 2006 law validly bars federal judges from considering so-called habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Four justices must agree before the court will take up a case for argument.

The rejection leaves President George W. Bush, at least for now, with broad authority to control the fate of the 380 Guantanamo inmates, many now in their sixth year of captivity without charges. The rebuff doesn't preclude the court from taking up the issue down the road.

Two justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy, said they voted not to hear the two detainee appeals ``despite the obvious importance of the issues.'' They said the detainees should first go before military tribunals, leaving open the possibility of later Supreme Court review to consider whether the military ``has unreasonably delayed'' those proceedings.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented. Breyer wrote for the three that ``these questions deserve this court's immediate attention.''

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted to reject the appeals. They made no comment.

Congressional Action

The rejection is ``a perfect example of `justice delayed is justice denied,''' attorney Thomas Wilner, who represented 39 inmates at the high court, said in an e-mail. ``The detainees are relegated to more months and possibly years of useless litigation to try to get the one simple thing they have always sought -- a fair hearing by an impartial tribunal to determine if there is a reasonable basis for detaining them.''

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, ``On first glance we're very pleased with the decision'' not to hear the appeal.

Sponsors of legislation to restore the right to file habeas petitions said the court's refusal to hear the case underscores the need for Congress to act. ``Congress cannot sit back and wait for the courts to fix this problem,'' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont said in a statement.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who had urged the Supreme Court to hear the appeal, and Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut also said Congress should pass such legislation.

Momentum `Unlikely'

Still, Thomas E. Mann, who studies Congress at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the court's action is unlikely to give new momentum in Congress for changing the law. He said proponents are ``unlikely to make much headway.''

In three previous cases since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Supreme Court put limits on the president's power to determine the fate of Guantanamo detainees without more involvement of the other two branches of government.

The administration said the latest dispute is different because Congress explicitly stripped federal trial judges of their power to hear habeas corpus petitions from detainees. Such petitions are a centuries-old legal device used by inmates to claim they are being wrongfully held.

Lawmakers put in place a different system that requires the military to review each inmate's status as an ``enemy combatant'' on a regular basis and gives detainees limited rights to appeal those conclusions.

`Such Privileges'

``No other captured enemy combatants in the history of this country, or any other, have enjoyed such privileges,'' the administration's top courtroom lawyer, Solicitor General Paul Clement, argued in court papers.

Clement urged the court not to get involved until the ramifications of the 2006 Military Commissions Act are clearer. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the law on a 2-1 vote.

Clement also argued that the inmates can't claim a constitutional right to file habeas petitions because they aren't U.S. citizens and have never set foot on U.S. soil. Guantanamo, though under U.S. control because of a 1903 lease agreement, is on Cuban sovereign territory.

The administration pointed to a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that barred habeas petitions by 21 German soldiers who were captured by U.S. forces in China, convicted of war crimes there and then incarcerated in occupied Germany.

1950 Ruling

In 2004 the Supreme Court, voting 6-3, said the 1950 decision didn't bar the Guantanamo detainees from filing habeas petitions. One issue in today's case was whether that ruling interpreted a federal law, as the administration contends, or established a constitutional right, as the detainees argue.

Two groups of detainees asked the Supreme Court to intervene. One consisted of six Algerian natives seized in Bosnia in 2002 and held ever since at Guantanamo without charges.

The other appeal was filed by 39 prisoners, most taken into custody in Afghanistan or the bordering areas of Pakistan. Most aren't facing criminal charges. Of the 380 prisoners at Guantanamo, only 10 have ever faced charges.

Under a 2005 law, panels known as Combat Status Review Tribunals consider the ``enemy combatant'' status of each prisoner on a regular basis. Inmates can challenge those decisions in the D.C. Circuit.

The inmates said that process is an inadequate substitute for the habeas process. The status review tribunals sharply limit the evidence inmates can gather and present and bar them from being represented by lawyers. The rules also put the burden on detainees to prove that they shouldn't be detained.

In addition, the 2005 law limits the issues the D.C. Circuit can consider on appeal and, according to Waxman, doesn't give that court the right to release someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned.

The cases are Boumediene v. Bush, 06-1195, and Al Odah v. United States, 06-1196.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: April 2, 2007 17:36 EDT