Executive overreach to provide immunity to Universal crimes questioned
[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 January 2012, 03:34 GMT]Bruce Fein, attorney for the three Tamil plaintiffs who have charged Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse of war-crimes in the District Court of District of Columbia, in response to the "suggestion" of immunity for Rajapakse by the US Justice Department, told TamilNet, that he has asked the court to allow the plaintiffs to file a Memorandum in Opposition, and added "among other deficiencies in the US Government's legal analysis, we underscored the counter-constitutional proposition asserted by the Executive Branch that it was crowned with judicial power to order the dismissal of lawsuits based on its understanding of the law which federal judges were precluded from second-guessing. Such a putative power in the Executive Branch would blatantly flout the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution."
Full text of the statement of Bruce Fein, attorney for the plaintiffs, follows:
Bruce Fein, former US Associate Deputy Attorney General
Harold Koh, Legal Advisor, Department of State
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
On the day the Suggestion of Immunity was filed, we filed a motion to permit plaintiffs to respond with a Memorandum in Opposition within 45 days.
Among other deficiencies in legal analysis, we underscored the counter-constitutional proposition asserted by the Executive Branch that it was crowned with judicial power to order the dismissal of lawsuits based on its understanding of the law which federal judges were precluded from second-guessing. Such a putative power in the Executive Branch would blatantly flout the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. The Suggestion of Immunity also wrongly ignored the congressional decision in the TVPA to expose “any individual” to a lawsuit for damages on account of complicity in extra-judicial killings irrespective of any office the culprit may be occupying. Congress is not required by the Constitution to be an echo chamber of the foreign policy of the President.
We are now awaiting decisions by the District Court in response to the Executive Branch’s Suggestion of Immunity and our motion to permit filing an opposition. In the meantime, we are preparing to amend our Complaint to add Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka as co-defendants for their complicity in the extra-judicial killings of the victims whose legal representatives are the plaintiffs.
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