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Insurrection & court intervention Pt 3

19 July 2024 / Michael Zander KC
Issue: 8080 / Categories: Features , Profession , International , Public
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Michael Zander KC on Trump v United States
  • The majority held that the president could not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers and was entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all other official acts.

The US Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on presidential immunity has raised serious alarm. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a powerful dissent joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, warned: ‘Under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution.’ She ended: ‘With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’

The court said that the president was not above the law, but deprived that statement of most of its content both by the width of what it said was covered by immunity and by how it narrowed the path for a prosecutor.

The government argued that a president enjoyed no immunity whatever from criminal prosecution. Trump argued that just as a president had been held to enjoy absolute immunity from civil

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Head of corporate promoted to director

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Firm strengthens international arbitration team with key London hire

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

FCA contentious financial regulation lawyer joins the team as of counsel

NEWS
Social media giants should face tortious liability for the psychological harms their platforms inflict, argues Harry Lambert of Outer Temple Chambers in this week’s NLJ
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024—once heralded as a breakthrough—has instead plunged leaseholders into confusion, warns Shabnam Ali-Khan of Russell-Cooke in this week’s NLJ
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now confirmed that offering a disabled employee a trial period in an alternative role can itself be a 'reasonable adjustment' under the Equality Act 2010: in this week's NLJ, Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve analyses the evolving case law
Caroline Shea KC and Richard Miller of Falcon Chambers examine the growing judicial focus on 'cynical breach' in restrictive covenant cases, in this week's issue of NLJ
Ian Gascoigne of LexisNexis dissects the uneasy balance between open justice and confidentiality in England’s civil courts, in this week's NLJ. From public hearings to super-injunctions, he identifies five tiers of privacy—from fully open proceedings to entirely secret ones—showing how a patchwork of exceptions has evolved without clear design
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