L’Etat? C’est Chimpy.
Well, he’s finally gone and done it and declared himself King.
Bush Declares Eco-Whistleblower Law Void for EPA Employees
Stealth Repeal of Clean Water Act Protections by Invoking “Sovereign Immunity”
By: Public Employees for Environmental ResponsibilityPublished: Sep 4, 2006 at 08:40
[…]
Citing an “unpublished opinion of the [Attorney General’s] Office of Legal Counsel,” the Secretary of Labor’s Administrative Review Board has ruled federal employees may no longer pursue whistleblower claims under the Clean Water Act. The opinion invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity which is based on the old English legal maxim that “The King Can Do No Wrong.” It is an absolute defense to any legal action unless the “sovereign” consents to be sued.
[…]
This subfusc and underhand yet still somehow curiously blatant approach is what we’ve come to expect from Gonzales, though this also has the sulphurous whiff of Addington about it. I’m inclined to think this EPA case was meant as a quiet dummy run for a much wider application of sovereign immunity, that last resort of the corrupt politician or war criminal. Declaring the entire executive from the President downwards above the law was not at all what was envisaged by the framers of the Constitution. In effect it creates a monarch and a court.
Sovereign immunity at the Federal level is particularly indefensible since “We the People,” who ordained and established these United States and created the Federal “sovereign,” did not see fit to cloak “our sovereign” with immunity for its actions. However the doctrine has been judicially recognized these past 200 years, planted in dictum by Chief Justice Jay in Chisolm v. Georgia [2 Dall. (2 US) 419 (1793)], fertilized in dictum by Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia [6 Wheat. (19 US) 264 (1821)], and germinating in Clarke v. United States [8 Pet. (19 US) 436 (1834)]. There is no constitutional basis for sovereign immunity, it is purely and simply a judge-made legal anachronism.
Aha, so Gonzales may well be basing his monarchist opinion on the decisions of some reactionary activist judges from 200 years ago? How very antiquarian of him. He’s changed his view – I thought he regarded outmoded laws as ‘quaint’. My bad. I must’ve missed the memo. Oh well, we’ll never know exactly what he’s basing his reasoning on anyway, because the opinion is unpublished. The American people’ll just have to take it on faith that if Bush’s personal AG says it’s so, then it’s so.
You can’t say they lack cheek – when all else fails, even “It wasn’t me”, declare yourself infallible and all your domestic spying, illegal war and those other pesky little problemettes disappear in one fell swoop. No more Gitmo, no more Abu Ghraib, no more Katrina…Hey presto! It’s almost as good as being Born Again.
Allelujah! Praise the lord and pass the treasury keys.
Read more: Environment, Pollution US Constitution, Bush, Gonzales, EPA, Whistleblowers. Sovereign Immunity. Corruption, Torture, Katrina
