While the peak body representing the national legal profession said any move that will help restore the rights of Australian detainee David Hicks was a positive one, “this eleventh hour decision by the US provides little consolation for [Hicks] and his family”, said Law Council president Tim Bugg.

“This is clearly a move made under the pressure of the US Supreme Court decision in Hamdan’s case that the military commission process violated the Geneva Conventions.”

“If it was genuinely concerned about the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees, the US Government would have treated its prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Conventions from the outset.” The recent gesture is “way too little, way too late”, said Bugg.