[JURIST] A three judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [official website] on Friday upheld [opinion text] the constitutionality of provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act [18 USC § 4248 text], which allow a person deemed "sexually dangerous" to be civilly committed after the expiration of a federal criminal sentence. Two members of the panel found that civil commitments were within the power granted to Congress under the Constitution's Necessary and Proper Clause [Article 1, Section 8] as an extension of the government's custodial responsibility for federal inmates. Likening the commitment of sex offenders to the continued hospitalization of an inmate suffering from a mental disease or defect under section 4246 [18 USC § 4246 text], the court ruled that the Supreme Court's decision in Greenwood v. United States [opinion text] recognizing federal authority to order civil commitments extends to sex offenders.

The exercise of a federal commitment power embodied in section 4248 operates to prevent the release into society at large of sexually dangerous persons as to whom the federal government has custodial responsibilities. Because that exercise is limited to cases in which the federal government has a custodial duty, and because the federal scheme respects state prerogatives in the field of civil commitment, we conclude that it is consistent with both the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

[JURIST] The Chinese Embassy in Switzerland [official website] on Friday warned that Switzerland would jeopardize relations with China by accepting two Uighur Guantanamo Bay detainees [JURIST news archive]. Switzerland has already agreed [JURIST report] to accept an Uzbek Guantanamo detainee, who will be relocated to the canton of Geneva, but authorities from the canton of Jura made a public statement last month expressing willingness to take two Uighur brothers. Since then, the Chinese embassy has issued repeated warnings [SwissInfo report] to Swiss authorities cautioning against accepting the Uighurs. Public reaction in Switzerland is ambivalent, with some calling for Switzerland to stay away from an American-created problem and others appealing to human rights and maintaining [Le Matin report, in French] a position independent of Chinese pressure.

Of the 22 Uighurs originally detained at Guantanamo Bay, 15 have been relocated. Six Uighurs were transferred to Palau in October, four were sent to Bermuda last June, and five were received by Albania [JURIST reports] in 2006. China has continued to call for repatriation [JURIST report] of the Uighur detainees that Chinese authorities consider to be part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) [CFR backgrounder], a militant group that calls for separation from China and which has been a US-designated terrorist group since 2002. The US has previously rejected China's calls to repatriate the Uighurs, citing fear of torture upon their return. In November, four Uighurs at Guantanamo filed a petition for certiorari [JURIST report] with the Supreme Court, challenging an appellate ruling that prohibited courts from preventing the transfer of detainees to foreign countries for fear of persecution or torture.