BBC, Time, NYT report: The Supreme Court rules that foreign suspects held in Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts.

The court said the detainees "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus". Justice Anthony Kennedy said: "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

This is the Bush administration's third setback at the highest US court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charge in Cuba. The court has ruled twice previously that Guantanamo inmates could go into civilian courts to ask that the government justify their continued detention. But each time, the Bush administration and Congress, then controlled by Republicans, changed the law to keep the detainees out of civilian courts.

Justices Roberts,Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Justices Kennedy,Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens formed the majority.