President Donald Trump’s second term is marked by frequent disputes between the government’s executive and judicial branches – and perhaps anywhere this conflict is embodied more literally than in a case to come this week in Maryland.
On the one hand of the trial, you have the United States Ministry of Justice. On the other hand, you have the entire American district court for the Maryland district. In question: permanent ordinances imposed by the court which automatically block the deportations of certain prisoners of immigrants for two working days. The judges of Maryland asked that the case be rejected, and judge Thomas Cullen declared that he would govern the request by the Labor Day.
Updating news: Judge Cullen rejected the trial Against the judges of the Maryland American district court on August 26, several hours after the publication of this article. Read the full Associated Press Story For more details.
Why we wrote this
A trial of the Ministry of Justice of the Trump administration is unprecedented in that it pursues both all the judges of the Federal District Court of Maryland. The potentially with high challenges concerns the expulsion and separation of the powers of the Constitution.
The case, US c. Russell, focuses on a legal issue for which the Ministry of Justice may well have a winning argument, according to legal experts. But by appointing 15 federal judges as defendants, the apparently unprecedented case could have important implications for the separation of the powers of the Constitution and the rule of law. If the Ministry of Justice prevails, some legal observers warn, the executive power would be able to prosecute a judge or a court with which he does not agree. The normal appeal to contest an unfavorable legal decision – an appeal – could actually be avoided.
“If this trial succeeds, I do not see how a president could not continue a judge whenever he does something he does not like,” explains Michael McConnell, former judge of the Federal Court of Appeal and professor at Stanford Law School.
The Maryland Court was also the place of a famous cause for Trump supporters and criticism. The Ministry of Justice filed this case, US c. Russell, three months after a judge from Maryland ruled that the administration had mistakenly expelled Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant Salvadoran, the government claims to be a member of a gang. Mr. Abrego Garcia has since been returned to the United States and has now faced expulsion in Uganda.
While the American affair c. Russell raises an important legal question, the choice to pursue the entire court could make victory more difficult for the Ministry of Justice, according to experts. The political nuances of the case are difficult to ignore.
“The trial itself is extremely strange, but the underlying action of the district court of Maryland is also unprecedented and extremely strange,” said Professor McConnell.
“I must conclude that these things are not done in order to achieve a particular legal result, but rather political theater,” he adds.
A trial against 15 judges
There was a handful of cases in which the members of the executive power continued the judiciary, but there does not seem to be a precedent for the United States itself – through the United States Ministry of Justice – bringing legal action against the judiciary.
This also occurs while administration officials, including Trump himself, have repeatedly criticized court decisions and individual judges. An administration official described an unfavorable decision as a “judicial coup”. The Ministry of Justice has filed for lack of failing against two judges. Republican members of the Congress have launched efforts to dismiss three judges who ruled against the president.
Now, 15 judges are accused in the Russell case. One of them, judge Paula Xinis, judged that the government had illegally expelled Mr. Abrego Garcia and had repeatedly criticized the government’s efforts to return it to the United States in a statement last week, the Ministry of Internal Security described Xinis judge as “disarticulated” and “hungry advertising”.
Although the affair seems to be criticizing the White House towards the courts of the titles of the courtroom, the case itself is focused on a specific grievance.
In May, the district court of Maryland made a permanent order which effectively blocked for two days the expulsion of any person contesting their withdrawal by a petition of Habeas Corpus. A few weeks earlier, the United States Supreme Court held that the moves under a law in wartime of the 18th century invoked by the Trump administration could only be disputed by federal habeas petitions. The district court quickly made a modified standard order, citing “difficulties” that the judges of the Court had made “precipitated” decisions in the expulsion affairs in Habeas.
These permanent orders, according to the judges of the district of Maryland, are a “modest exercise in the management of files” in response to a change “demanding and almost unprecedented” in the application of immigration.
“While the district courts have had fewer opportunities in recent decades to deal with a large volume of immigration disputes, which has changed in recent months,” the judges wrote in a request for the trial.
The government, on the other hand, wrote that orders represent “an extraordinary form of legal interference in executive prerogatives”.
The “illegal” ordinances, added the Ministry of Justice, demanded “irreparable damage to the executive power by causing its embrasure on its [authority] on the application of immigration. »»
Legal arguments at stake
The government has a solid legal argument, according to some experts. But the extended nature of its trial means that the Ministry of Justice may have been disabled by going beyond.
It is unusual for a federal district court to issue permanent orders like these, which automatically apply to certain cases, according to experts. On the other hand, the federal courts of appeal, which are responsible for the hearing of the expulsion appeal appeals issued by the immigration courts, have long -standing rules allowing such orders.
Faced with an increase in habeas petitions of immigrants, the district court of Maryland has indeed created its own rule to manage the tip. This decision is questionable, explains Professor McConnell.
“A deportation suspension is a legal order. This can be temporary, but it is always a real legal order, ”he adds. And “each order made by a federal court must be made by a federal judge”.
However, the potential effects of government undulations successfully pursuing an entire bench in the district court could overwhelm its legal argument.
The government has never needed to continue the entire bench of the Maryland district court, say the legal observers. The Ministry of Justice could have challenged the ordinances in an individual expulsion case, where the issues would be much lower. Instead, judge Cullen declared earlier this month at a hearing on the case that he had “a certain skepticism” on the permission of the trial to continue given the implications for separation of powers.
“We [could] Enter a situation where individual judicial defendants are subject to deposits. Their internal correspondence, emails, would be subject to discovery, “he added, reported the Washington Post.
And that would put anyone to supervise the case in an uncomfortable position. The judges are generally safe from prosecution, similar to the way in which members of the Congress and former presidents have a certain legal immunity.
But having to invoke that immunity could be harmful, in particular for a judicial power which has faced persistent attacks against its credibility, explains Payvand Ahdout, an associate professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Virginia.
“That [would] put a lot of pressure on the [judicial] System outside, ”she adds.
“There is no good way, even if the judges must deal with the same way that they have treated members of the congress and the president.”
Whatever the decision this week, the decision will probably be on appeal and may soon arrive at the United States Supreme Court.
Publisher’s note: This story, initially published at 5 a.m. on August 26, was updated later in the day with a link to a story of Associated Press Wire with the latest news on the dismissal of the trial.
