‘There are judges in Jerusalem,’ Menachem Begin is reputed to have proclaimed, following a court ruling which he believed vindicated one of his policy positions.
The phrase has been appropriated by critics of judicial reform and others keen to see Bagatz, the Israeli supreme court, remain a bulwark against illiberal overreach by the government. ‘There are judges in Jerusalem’ is a reassuring reminder that, whatever the designs of politicians, the law remains the supreme rule of the land.
There are judges in Washington DC, too. The Supreme Court of the United States has denied the Trump administration’s application for vacatur of a temporary restraining order preventing the State Department from implementing the USAID cuts announced by Donald Trump. In February, a coalition of NGOs and businesses filed suit claiming the proposed funding withdrawals were unlawful and sought relief enjoining the State Department from enforcing the president’s orders until the matter could be litigated.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order, halting any funding cuts, then followed this up with a second order directing the administration to hand over $2 billion in funding to aid agencies and development projects within 36 hours. Respondents argued that the government had contracts with them, were bound by these agreements and couldn’t simply zero out funding.
The State Department petitioned the Supreme Court, which has refused by a vote of 5-4 to vacate the lower court’s order. That means the Trump administration must part with the money for all those projects the White House and its acolytes in DOGE have been loudly mocking as woke or wasteful. As it happens, I find Justice Alito’s dissent, which is joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, pretty persuasive. The district court probably erred in granting a temporary restraining order and might have violated sovereign immunity when it instructed the administration to hand over cash which will, in all likelihood, be unrecoverable. The legalities, however, are not the point.
The point is that there are judges in Washington DC. A lot of liberals and centrists responded to Trump’s 2024 victory like its 2016 forerunner: with hyperventilating hysteria. The constitution was too weak to contain him, the courts would be powerless to rein in his worst excesses, lawless tyranny was surely on the way. And yet here we have the Supreme Court, with six of its nine members Republican appointees, forcing the administration to comply with district court orders that are procedurally and constitutionally dubious at best. The Court is not only reining Trump in, it’s reining him in when it probably ought to cut him some slack.
Even in an age of populist tumult, process matters. Courts matter. The law matters. I harbour no illusions about Donald Trump. Of course he’d love to do whatever the hell he wants. He’s Donald Trump, after all. But his black-pilling, doom-posting detractors ought to have more faith in the republic and its constitution. There are judges in Washington DC.
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