The Personal Representative is an officer who serves before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals 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 established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...

s, convened for the captives the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 holds in extrajudicial detention

Extrajudicial detention

Arbitrary or extrajudicial detention is the detention of individuals by a state, without ever laying formal charges against them.Although it has a long history of legitimate use in wartime , detention without charge, sometimes in secret, has been one of the hallmarks of totalitarian states...

 in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

.

History of the Tribunals

Initially United States President George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 asserted that captives taken during the "Global War on Terror

War on Terrorism

The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...

":

• Did not qualify for Prisoner of War
  Prisoner of war
  A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
  
   status, as defined by the Geneva Conventions
  Geneva Conventions
  The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
  
  .
• Were not entitled to the protection of having a "competent tribunal
  Competent tribunal
  Competent Tribunal is a term used Article 5 paragraph 2 of the Third Geneva Convention, which states:-ICRC commentary on competent tribunals:...
  
  " convened, where their combatant status would be openly reviewed.

This assertion was criticized by many legal scholars, and lawyers who volunteered to represent Guantanamo captives mounted legal challenges in the US Court system. The first legal challenge to be heard before the United States Supreme Court was Rasul v. Bush

Rasul v. Bush

Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision establishing that the U.S. court system has the authority to decide whether foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay were wrongfully imprisoned...

.

The Supreme Court addressed some aspects of the case. In particular, it ruled that the Guantanamo captives were entitled to an opportunity to hear, and challenge, the allegations the DoD felt justified their continued extrajudicial detention.

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the Court in 2006. O'Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981...

 wrote that the Department of Defense should convene Tribunals similar to those described in Army Regulation 190-8.

Army Regulation 190-8 sets out the procedure officers of the United States armed forces

United States armed forces

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

 should follow to determine whether captives taken during a war were:

1. lawful combatants, entitled to the protections of POW status.
2. innocent civilian refugees, who should be released immediately.
3. combatants who have acted in a manner that has stripped them of the protections of POW status.

Duties of the Personal Representative

Guantanamo captive's Personal Representatives duties included:

1. meeting with captive prior to their Tribunal, to explain the Combatant Status Review Tribunal procedure to them, including:
   • explaining that the Tribunals were administrative procedures, not judicial procedures.
   • explaining that captives were entitled to attend every Tribunal session where unclassified evidence was discusses;
   • explaining that captives were not obliged to testify at their Tribunals;
   • explaining that they would have an opportunity to respond to all the unclassified allegations presented at their Tribunal.
   • explaining that they could call upon the testimony of any witnesses they felt could address the allegations they faced, but that their Tribunal's President would then rule whether their witnesses were relevant and reasonably available.
   • explaining that they could call upon any documents they felt could address the allegations they faced, and as with their witness requests, their Tribunal's President would then rule whether those documents were relevan and reasonably available.

Criticisms of the performance of the Personal Representative

Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington is a British historian, journalist, and film director.He has published three books, and been published in numerous publications.In 2009 Worthington was the co-director of a documentary about the Guantanamo detainees....

, author of The Guantanamo Files, singled out the Personal Representatives of two captives who were notably active on their behalf.
The names of these officers has not been made public, but the captives they represented were: Farouq Saif and Muhammed Khan Tumani.

See also

• Recorder (CSRT)
  Recorder (CSRT)
  One of the officers present during the Combatant Status Review Tribunals convened at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba, was known as the Recorder....
  
  
• Tribunal President (CSRT)
  Tribunal President (CSRT)
  The Combatant Status Review Tribunal the US Department of Defense commissioned, like the Tribunals described in Army Regulation 190-8, which they were modeled after, were three member panels, led by a Tribunal President.-History of the Tribunals:...
  
  
• Reporter (CSRT)
• Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants
  Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of 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 Status Review Tribunals for captives held in...