Opinion ID: 187107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the Record on Review.

Text: Bismullah II attempts to correct the Government's overreading of Bismullah I's description of the record on review by, first, repeating the panel's reading of the Government Information (defined by DoD Regulation E-1 § E(3)) as including only information reasonably available (again, specified by DoD Regulation E-1 § E(3)) and, then, by concluding that information without regard to whether it is `reasonably available' is clearly not required by Bismullah I. Bismullah II, 503 F.3d at 141. Bismullah II, however, leaves intact the panel's original conclusion that whether the preponderance of the evidence supported the conclusion of the Tribunal, cannot be ascertained without consideration of all the Government Information. Id. at 140 (citing Bismullah I, 501 F.3d at 185-86.) Why we are unable to otherwise conduct our limited review of the validity of the CSRT's decision is left largely unexplained. [2] But in the criminal context-where the protections accorded the arrestee are greater and our review is, accordingly, more searching-our Court is plainly able to review the conduct of a preliminary hearing without knowing all the evidence the prosecution has gathered. The reason, of course, is that the preliminary hearing is limited in scope. Coleman v. Burnett, 477 F.2d 1187, 1201 (D.C.Cir.1973) (The preliminary hearing is not a minitrial of the issue of guilt, . . . `A preliminary hearing,' the Supreme Court has said, `is ordinarily a much less searching exploration into the merits of a case than a trial, simply because its function is the more limited one of determining whether probable cause exists to hold the accused for trial.' (quoting Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 725, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968))). So too is the CSRT's mission: that is, at this stage, it must decide simply whether the detainee is an enemy combatant. Only if he is one can he, presumably, then be held for trial before a military commission. If we can determine whether the preponderance of the evidence supports a probable cause finding sufficient to hold an arrestee for trial without knowing (much less, reviewing) all the evidence in the prosecutor's possession, can we not do so in reviewing the evidence supporting the enemy combatant designation? [3] And should not all of us at least hear the arguments for and against, especially in the national security context? And especially given the showing the. Government has made in both its unclassified and ex parte and in camera submissions? Bismullah II, 503 F.3d at 138 n. 1. Even if we use the administrative agency analogy instead, the Supreme Court has made clear that we have no license to create a record consisting of more than the agency itself had before it. Camp v. Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142, 93 S.Ct. 1241, 36 L.Ed.2d 106 (1973) ([t]he focal point for judicial review should be the administrative record already in existence, not some new record made initially in the reviewing court.); Doraiswamy v. Sec'y of Labor, 555 F.2d 832, 839-40 (D.C.Cir.1976) (This circumscription [that review be confined to the administrative record], which the Court has consistently honored in other cases, stems from well ingrained characteristics of the administrative process. The administrative function is statutorily committed to the agency, not the judiciary. A reviewing court is not to supplant the agency on the administrative aspects of the litigation. . . . The grounds upon which an administrative order must be judged are those upon which the record discloses that its action was based (internal citations, quotations and footnotes omitted); Walter O. Boswell Mem'l Hosp. v. Heckler, 749 F.2d 788, 793 (D.C.Cir.1984) (explaining that the record for the reviewing court is limited to that information before the [agency] at the time of [its] decision, . . . thus excluding ex post supplementation of the record by either side.); Mail Order Ass'n of Am. v. U.S. Postal Serv., 2 F.3d 408, 433-34 (D.C.Cir. 1993) (same). Again, should we not at least hear and weigh the arguments for and against in the national security context?