Saturday, February 7, will find me again in the departure lounge at Andrews Air Force Base awaiting my departure to Guantanamo Bay to observe the 9/11 hearings scheduled to take place the week of February 9. The military commission made the 6-page amended docket available on January 26, 2015. The docket lists over 30 motions; and notes that counsel should be prepared to argue any other motion for which the briefing schedule has concluded.
In an effort to prepare for the upcoming hearings, I went to the military commission website to review the relevant documents. Whenever I go to the case site I am reminded of the overwhelming complexity of these hearings. Here are just a few numbers I noted:
- 2959 documents listed on the docket (269 webpages)
- 55 documents filed in January 2015
- 32 documents filed by the defense teams
- 4 documents files by the prosecution
- 19 documents filed by the commission
Of the 55 documents filed in January 2015, three are available for public review. One of these three is the amended docket.
Transparency is one key to making sure there are fair and open trials afforded to the defendants held at Guantanamo Bay. The inability to review court filings casts an interesting shadow on the goal of transparency. Other key elements of fair and open trials are detailed in the Guantanamo Bay Fair Trial Manual that I will be taking and distributing to NGO Observers and other interested persons next week.
(Catherine Lemmer, 9/11 Hearings GTMO, February 2015)