Chapter4 Access to Justice | 81 test. First, the Government must identify the categories of information it seeks to protect and provide a valid basis for withholding information in those categories. Second, the court must determine whether the specific information the Government has designated for protection properly falls within the category identified in the first step. 212 182. When addressing issues related to the voluntariness of detainees’ statements, the D.C. District Court has adopted a basic framework. The district court judges require voluntariness as a condition of admissibility, and when a detainee establishes coercion or the Government does not contest a coercion allegation, they import an attenuation analysis, a multi-factor test, to see how long the taint of that coercion continues to affect statements made later under non-coercive circumstances. The D.C. Circuit Court, however, has avoided addressing this issue. 213 183. In Al-Hajj v. Obama the detainee alleged that inculpatory statements were obtained by coercion or under the influence of past coercion. On May 23, 2011, the D.C. District Court granted the detainee’s motion to strike statements he made in custody at Guantanamo from the factual return because respondents failed to establish that the effects of coercion from his previous detention had dissipated.214 The detainee stated, without refutation, that he had been subject to torture in Jordan and Afghanistan prior to his arrival at Guantanamo. The court applied the attenuation analysis with factors including the time passing between confessions, change in place of interrogations, change in identity of the interrogators, length of detention, repeated and prolonged nature of questioning, the use of physical punishment, and the continuing effects of prior coercive techniques on the voluntariness of any subsequent confession. The Government bore the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that each confession was voluntary. 184. According to inter-American standards, no one can be deprived of their liberty without due process of law, and, regardless of their status, everyone has the nonderogable right to judicial review of their detention. 215 The Inter-American Commission has long recognized that the writ of habeas corpus is an essential guarantor of the right to be free from arbitrary detention. One fundamental principle established in the inter-American system is that for a remedy to be effective, “it must be truly effective in establishing whether there has been a violation of human rights and in providing redress.” Further, judicial remedies “cannot be reduced to a mere formality” and “must examine the reasons invoked by the claimant” and make express findings in response. 216 212 213 214 215 216 In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litig., 787 F. Supp. 2d 5 (D.D.C. 2011). See in this regard Lawfare, An Additional Thought on Al-Hajj, by Benjamin Wittes, June 8, 2011. Available at: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/06/an-additional-thought-on-al-hajj/ Al-Hajj v. Obama, 800 F. Supp. 2d 19 (D.C.C. 2011). See, mutatis mutandi, I/A Court H.R., Judicial Guarantees in States of Emergency (Arts. 27(2), 25 and 8 of the American Convention on Human Rights), Advisory Opinion OC-9/87 of October 6, 1978. Series A No. 9. Paras. 29-30. IACHR, Report on the Use of Pretrial Detention in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc. 46/13, December 30, 2013, para. 197. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR