The supreme court is cracking down on judges – and letting Trump run wild | Steven Greenhouse

EGreen since Donald Trump returned to power, he made an unprecedented assault against the country’s rule of law. But we can be grateful that a group of people – judges of the Federal District Court – courageously resisted him and his many illegal actions.

His excesses include the evisceration of federal agencies, the expulsion of immigrants without regular procedure, the search for thousands of federal jobs despite their legal protections and the end of the citizenship of the right of birth. An intention to respect the Constitution and the rule of law, the judges of the district court made more than 190 ordinances blocking or temporarily interrupting Trump’s actions which they considered illegal. Their decisions have slowed down the American president’s demolition bullet when it demolishes federal agencies, devastates foreign aid, decimates scientific research and demoralizes government employees.

Those of us who have kept hope that the Supreme Court, as well as Rightwing that it has become, would join the district courts and resist Trump that our hopes rushed last week. The six hard judges on the right won a major victory to Trump when they overturned as puppies and decided that the judges of the district court can no longer, except in very limited circumstances, to issue national injunctions to stop Trump’s illegalities.

In decision 6-3, the judges ruled that when the district judges are convinced that a presidential action is illegal, they can only issue injunctions which cover only the complainants who have brought a trial – they can only issue injunctions on a national level if they conclude that such an action is the only way to ensure total compensation for applicants. (The court wrote that applicants could still be able to earn major injunctions by providing collective appeals.)

This affair, Trump against Casa, involved Trump’s executive decree which prohibited citizenship of the right of birth – despite the language of the 14th amendment which specifically guarantees it. In this case, Trump challenged the national injunctions of district judges nationally to maintain citizenship of the rights of action – three judges of the district court had judged that the order of Trump was unconstitutional and had issued national injunctions. In the Casa case, the judges have limited their decision to the validity of national injunctions, without deciding on the constitutionality of the prohibition of Trump on the citizenship of the birth law.

In a spicy dissent, judge Sonia Sotomayor accused the supermajority of the “complicity” of the court with Trump’s efforts to make a “solemn mockery of our constitution”. With the judges Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining his dissent, Sotomayor wrote that “by stripping the federal courts” of their vast injunctive powers, the supreme court “Knecap of the authority of the judiciary to prevent the executive from executing even the most unconstitutional policies”.

There are two big problems with the Casa decision. First, it gives a red light to what was the most effective control of Trump’s illegalities and the authoritarian power. Second, the decision gives Trump green light to accelerate with more illegal actions, knowing that district court judges will be much less able to effectively suppress its acts without law.

For liberal judges and many Trump criticisms, enormous concern is that when a district court judge now finds an illegal Trump policy, the judge can only enjoin him for the complainants of the case. Meanwhile, Trump can continue to impose this policy in the other 49 states. In his separate dissent, Jackson wrote: “The court’s decision to authorize the executive to violate the Constitution with regard to anyone who has not yet continued is an existential threat to the rule of law.”

One thing seemed to be extraordinarily closed as to the decision of the supermajure: they seemed infinitely more concerned about the fact that the national injunction of a district court could go beyond the legal authority of this judge that what they were concerned with the unprecedented authoritarian actions of Trump and the illegal surpluses: his regalgation against the congress of billions of grants to universities because they have policies diversity he hates.

In the opinion of the majority, judge Amy Creey Barrett wrote that the judges do not have a “unbridled authority” to ensure that the presidents comply with the law. While many political scientists sound the alarm that Trump creates an authoritarian presidency insufficiently verified by the separation of the powers of the Constitution, Barrett warned against an “imperial judicial power”. Conservative supermajority has not seen the authoritarian trees forest; They seem blind to whom is the real threat to our democracy. They are not district court judges to respect the law. It was a president who suggested that he was above the law.

The Casa decision continues a dangerous scheme in which conservative judges bow against Trump. In another case last week, the court rendered an unsigned decision, with the three dissident liberal judges, which, in fact, said that it was good for Trump to deport immigrants to third countries, rather than their own, without giving them a chance to be heard of the reason why this third country could be dangerous for them. Not only did the court left the Trump administration at the short-circuit short-circuit in this case, but that gave Trump a victory in a case where his administration had disobeyed twice the orders of a district court. By not criticizing the cheeky challenge of the administration of a lower court judge, the supermajority seemed dangerously reporting that it is acceptable that the administration flouts the orders of the district judges.

In another important case, the court ruled for Trump by interrupting the order of a lower court according to which Gwynne Wilcox was reinstated to the National Council of Labor Relations, after Trump dismissed Wilcox without giving reason, despite the federal law, the members of the NLRB can only be dismissed for embezzlement. Then there was the disastrous decision of the immunity of last year, in which the chief judge John Roberts, as in a creative writing class, seemed to add as if by magic new clauses to the Constitution. The majority decision of Roberts granted Trump the alleged immunity of criminal prosecution for “official presidential acts” – a decision which, according to many legal researchers, encouraged Trump to violate the law.

Assuming that conservative supermajeurity wants to preserve our democracy and defend our constitution is exasperating and perplexed that they continue to obtain victories in Trump. Maybe they govern for him because they look too at Fox News and believe that Trump is a paragon to maintain the law. Or maybe the judges fear that Trump will save them and ridicule them if they dare to govern against King Maga. Or perhaps the judges governs Trump on several occasions because they fear challenging their decisions if they govern against him – and they will become the first Supreme Court of History that a president defeats several times.

In what is often called the case of the most important Supreme Court in history, Marbury against Madison, chief judge John Marshall wrote in 1803 that “it is categorically” the role of the judiciary “to say what is the law”. Unfortunately, the Casa decision last week Turned Marbury on his head in many ways. By limiting the ability of the tribunals of the district to say what is the law and to ensure that the executive follows it, the supermajority of the court gives Trump much more power than before to “say what is the law”. Without the district courts capable of issuing rapid national injunctions to limit the many illegalities of Trump, it can take a year or two before the Supreme Court acts to put an end to some of the most blatant illegal actions of Trump.

Given that Trump described himself as king and spoke of suspending the Constitution, the Supreme Court makes a dangerous error by giving Trump more power while making hamstrings of the capacity of courageous judges and principles to brake his excesses.

• Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on work and the workplace, as well as on economic and legal issues