Bush

A Coalition 1 of clergy, lawyers, and law professors petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of persons captured in Afghanistan by the Armed Forces of the United States and now held at Guantanamo Naval Base, Cuba, in a secure detention facility known as Camp X-Ray. The Coalition alleged that the detainees have been deprived of their liberty without due process of law, have not been informed of the nature and cause of the accusations against them or afforded the assistance of counsel, and are being held by the United States government in violation of the United States Constitution and the Third Geneva Convention.

The district court dismissed the petition on the grounds that: (1) the Coalition lacked next-friend standing to assert claims on behalf of the detainees; (2) the district court itself lacked jurisdiction to issue the writ; and (3) no federal court could have jurisdiction over the writ, so there is no basis to transfer the petition to another federal district court. Coalition of Clergy v. Bush, 189 F.Supp.2d 1036, 1039 (C.D.Cal.2002). The Coalition timely appealed.

Because we agree that the Coalition lacks next-friend and third-party standing to bring a…

concurring:

I agree with the result reached in the court’s opinion. I write separately because I do not believe that we need to address whether next friend standing always requires a significant relationship. If we did need to address that question, I would be inclined to hold that a significant relationship is not always necessary.

I.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 168-64 , 110 S.Ct. 1717 , 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990) adopted two requirements: (1) that the petitioner is unable to litigate his own cause; and (2) that the next friend be “truly dedicated” to the best interests of the person on whose behalf he seeks to litigate. Although the Supreme Court noted that “it has been suggested that a ‘next friend’ must have some significant relationship with the real party in interest,” id. (emphasis added), the Court, notably, did not choose to adopt this suggestion, adhering instead to the two-pronged test. See also Sanchez-Velasco v. Dept. of Corrections, 287 F.3d 1015, 1026 (11th Cir.2002), cert. denied 525 U.S. 811 , 119 S.Ct. 42 , 142 L.Ed.2d 33 (1998) (“significant relationship” may not be an “independent requirement”); but see Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,…