Iran and the U.S. Constitution A victory for terror victims—and the separation of powers.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-and-the-u-s-constitution-1461194694
The Supreme Court isn’t always the “least dangerous” branch that Alexander Hamilton envisioned. But a 6-2 majority did show self-control on Wednesday in a case involving terror and the Constitution’s separation of powers.
Since 1976, Congress has waived sovereign immunity to allow victims of terrorism to sue foreign governments, but such judgments are naturally difficult for U.S. courts to enforce in practice. The courts have ruled for more than 1,000 casualties or family members of Americans killed in attacks sponsored by Iran, and for years they attempted to collect damages by freezing $1.75 billion in bonds held in New York by Bank Markazi, the Iranian central bank.
The bank challenged the U.S. statutory definition of ownership, claiming the bonds were “of” the New York bank, not Iran or Markazi. So in 2012 Congress passed, and President Obama signed, a law that more specifically designates the types of assets that can be frozen to compensate terror victims, which included the ones Markazi tried to shield.
Bank Markazi v. Peterson asked whether this law is an unconstitutional intrusion on the independent power of the judiciary to make factual findings and decide individual cases. In other words, did Congress steal powers that Article III vests in the judiciary alone and require the courts to reach its favored result?
The law explicitly disposed of legal defenses that Markazi used to try to shelter its bonds, but that doesn’t guarantee any legal outcome. The Iranians have creative legal imaginations, and they must merely devise some other legal argument (as they probably will). CONTINUE AT SITE
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