@interfluidity I haven't really been following US politics. How has the Supreme Court legalized tyranny?
Honestly, this is a big problem for anyone who doesn't actually know what the law already said. Sovereign immunity has been the law of the land since the 1600s. In this way, the supreme Court is only reaffirming everyone already knew. It has its roots back in English common law. The king had created common courts which were required to hold to precedent created by earlier courts, ensuring fairness. Of course, being england, they did end up having to say that the King was immune to prosecution because they are the king the ultimate organ of the state. A lot of common law ended up getting transferred over to the United States when it was formed, including that concept.
As I said in my previous post, there is a solution to this. The Congress can pass a Federal executive liability after that explicitly lays out the situations under which the president would be criminally liable for actions that they make as the executive. There are already examples of Congress doing this such as 1983 civil rights claims and the Federal civil tort claims act.
If the concern is that Donald Trump is going to do something that bad, then Congress and Senate could get together with Democrats ans some never Trumpers pass such an act, and get Joe Biden to sign it. If Joe Biden won't sign it, then create a bipartisan law with broader support that gets supermajority, and force the president to sign it.
Of course, this is all political theatre so nobody will even try to pass such a law.
As I said in my previous post, there is a solution to this. The Congress can pass a Federal executive liability after that explicitly lays out the situations under which the president would be criminally liable for actions that they make as the executive. There are already examples of Congress doing this such as 1983 civil rights claims and the Federal civil tort claims act.
If the concern is that Donald Trump is going to do something that bad, then Congress and Senate could get together with Democrats ans some never Trumpers pass such an act, and get Joe Biden to sign it. If Joe Biden won't sign it, then create a bipartisan law with broader support that gets supermajority, and force the president to sign it.
Of course, this is all political theatre so nobody will even try to pass such a law.
@sj_zero @interfluidity @volkris Maybe. But that's a bad thing. If the outrage over this leads the law to be changed, that would be a win for rule of law.
In Canada and the UK, sovereign immunity is criminal and civil liability applying to the king or queen, but not to the head of the government as far as I can tell, the prime minister and so on. One of the things about sovereign immunity is that it's immunity unless the government allows itself to not be immune, and so in both Canada and the UK there are laws allowing lawsuits to be filed against the Crown.
In the UK there's also specific immunity regarding the monarch.
Besides that, it turns out there's a huge swath of immunity for the king or queen as a private citizen: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immunity-british-laws-private-property
The United States is different in that the head of state is the head of the government, and so I can see where a discrepancy between the two may arise.
The United States also has blanket immunity itself, which is a different question, and different countries state apparatus do or do not indemnify themselves.
Japan's supreme court recently claimed they have no power over the Emperor, suggesting sovereign immunity.
Australia notably does not have sovereign immunity, and their laws list which statutes do and do not apply to the crown.
India has an elected head of state in its president, and that president has immunity for the term of presidency written into the constitution, but that ends once the term ends.
So it seems like there's a lot of variability, suggesting the US could go either way under normal circumstances.
I think right now there's a problem that the US is on the verge of civil war, so we aren't in normal circumstances. Having the absolute sovereign immunity for actions taken in an official capacity I think might help throw a little water on the lawfare we're constantly seeing. If this decision went the other way, I don't see any reason to think we wouldn't see charges up against Biden, Obama, and Clinton in short order, and that it doesn't matter what you think about them, that would be a bad thing.
Having to come up with legislation, particularly bipartisan legislation, to limit such immunity, might actually be good -- it'll help set the ground rules and ensure there's accountability on one side, but that people aren't trying to figure out arbitrary rules before they've even been set on the other.
In the UK there's also specific immunity regarding the monarch.
Besides that, it turns out there's a huge swath of immunity for the king or queen as a private citizen: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immunity-british-laws-private-property
The United States is different in that the head of state is the head of the government, and so I can see where a discrepancy between the two may arise.
The United States also has blanket immunity itself, which is a different question, and different countries state apparatus do or do not indemnify themselves.
Japan's supreme court recently claimed they have no power over the Emperor, suggesting sovereign immunity.
Australia notably does not have sovereign immunity, and their laws list which statutes do and do not apply to the crown.
India has an elected head of state in its president, and that president has immunity for the term of presidency written into the constitution, but that ends once the term ends.
So it seems like there's a lot of variability, suggesting the US could go either way under normal circumstances.
I think right now there's a problem that the US is on the verge of civil war, so we aren't in normal circumstances. Having the absolute sovereign immunity for actions taken in an official capacity I think might help throw a little water on the lawfare we're constantly seeing. If this decision went the other way, I don't see any reason to think we wouldn't see charges up against Biden, Obama, and Clinton in short order, and that it doesn't matter what you think about them, that would be a bad thing.
Having to come up with legislation, particularly bipartisan legislation, to limit such immunity, might actually be good -- it'll help set the ground rules and ensure there's accountability on one side, but that people aren't trying to figure out arbitrary rules before they've even been set on the other.