Page:Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers, and Professors v. Bush.pdf/11

 Nevertheless, it has failed to demonstrate any relationship with the detainees, generally or individually. We therefore must conclude that even assuming the detainees are unable to litigate on their own behalf and even under the most relative interpretaion of the “significant relationship” requirement the Coalition lacks next-friend standing. As the district court aptly stated: "To permit petitioners to seek a writ of habeas corpus on a record devoid of any evidence that they have sought authorization to do so, much less obtained implied authority to do so, would violate the second prong of the Whitmore–Massie test. And it would invite well-meaning proponents of numerous assorted “causes” to bring lawsuits on behalf of unwitting strangers."

Coalition of Clergy, 189 F.Supp.2d at 1044. Having demonstrated no relationship either as to any individual detainee or to the detainees en masse, the efficacy of the Coalition’s representation is in serious doubt. At best, the Coalition can only assert “a generalized interest in constitutional governance.” Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 164, 110 S.Ct. 1717. This relationship is insufficient to support next-friend standing.


 * B. Third-party standing.

It is a well-established rule that a litigant may assert only his own legal rights and interests and cannot rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties. Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 113–14, 96 S.Ct. 2868, 49 L.Ed.2d 826 (1976); Warth, 422 U.S. at 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197. As the prohibition against third-party standing is prudential, rather than constitutional, the Supreme Court has recognized exceptions to this general rule. For example, in Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 410–11, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991), which upheld a litigant’s third-party standing to raise equal protection claims of jurors peremptorily challenged due to race, the Supreme Court recognized three requirements for would-be third-party petitioners. "We have recognized the right of litigants to bring actions on behalf of third parties, provided three important criteria are satisfied: The litigant must have suffered an “injury in fact,” thus giving him or her a “sufficiently concrete interest” in the outcome of the issue in dispute; the litigant must have a close relation to the third party; and there must exist some hindrance to the third party’s ability to protect his or her own interests."

Id. (citations omitted); see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); Shaw v. Hahn, 56 F.3d 1128, 1130 n. 3 (9th Cir.1995) (third party must have suffered an injury-in-fact) (citing Singleton, 428 U.S. at 112–16, 96 S.Ct. 2868).

Of the three requirements for third-party standing: (1) injury-in-fact; (2) close relationship to the third party; and (3) hindrance to the third party; the Coalition addresses only the last. It contends that a litigant may raise the claims of a third party if there is reason to believe that the individual is unlikely to be able to sue for himself or herself.

Even if we were to assume satisfaction of the third requirement, a hindrance to the detainees’ ability to assert their own claims, we would nevertheless conclude that the Coalition lacks third-party standing because neither it nor its members can demonstrate either the first requirement of an injury-in-fact or the second requirement of a close relationship. As to the first, the Coalition makes no allegation of personal injury to its members, and as to the second, it has alleged no relationship to the detainees. As in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S.