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There's an old maxim in the Common Law that "every right has a remedy". But it's just a maxim, and rights are often recognized long before any remedy. One of th
by wahern 6y ago
There's an old maxim in the Common Law that "every right has a remedy". But it's just a maxim, and rights are often recognized long before any remedy. One of the most recent (relative to the long term) and conspicuous attempts by American courts to try to judicially craft a remedy was the creation of the so-called Bivens Action, which permits citizens to sue Federal officials for civil rights violations in the absence of any statute. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bivens_actions https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bivens_actions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Ag... But over the past 40 years conservative justices have not only cabined but nearly extinguished Bivens claims, arguing that it abrogates the principle of sovereign immunity and subverts the legislative process. Ironically (or not so ironically), the same justices over the same timespan have judicially created defenses to S.1983 civil rights suits, protecting state officials in contravention of clear constitutional and statutory text. Both sides promote a background principle of law in contravention of nominal legal texts; "every right has a remedy" and individual justice in the case of the liberal faction, sovereign immunity in the case of the conservatives.