Latest news with #PSJVTA
Eyewitness News
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Supreme Court allows US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - The US Supreme Court cleared the way on Friday for American victims of attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank to sue Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts. The court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in a long-running case involving the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages. In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $655 million in damages and interest to US victims of attacks which took place in the early 2000s. Appeals courts had dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds. Congress passed a law in 2019 -- the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) -- that would make the PLO and PA subject to US jurisdiction if they were found to have made payments to the relatives of persons who killed or injured Americans. Two lower courts ruled that the 2019 law was a violation of the due process rights of the Palestinian authorities under the US Constitution but the Supreme Court ruled on Friday to uphold it. "The PSJVTA reasonably ties the assertion of federal jurisdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct that involves the United States and implicates sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. The PA announced in February that it would end its system of payments to the families of those killed by Israel or held in Israeli prisons, responding to a long-standing request from Washington. In 2018, during his first term as US president, Donald Trump signed into law rules suspending financial assistance to the PA as long as it continued to pay benefits to Palestinians linked to "terrorist" entities, according to the criteria of the Israeli authorities.
France 24
14 hours ago
- Politics
- France 24
Supreme Court allows US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
The court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in a long-running case involving the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages. In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $655 million in damages and interest to US victims of attacks which took place in the early 2000s. Appeals courts had dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds. Congress passed a law in 2019 -- the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) -- that would make the PLO and PA subject to US jurisdiction if they were found to have made payments to the relatives of persons who killed or injured Americans. Two lower courts ruled that the 2019 law was a violation of the due process rights of the Palestinian authorities under the US Constitution but the Supreme Court ruled on Friday to uphold it. "The PSJVTA reasonably ties the assertion of federal jurisdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct that involves the United States and implicates sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. The PA announced in February that it would end its system of payments to the families of those killed by Israel or held in Israeli prisons, responding to a long-standing request from Washington. In 2018, during his first term as US president, Donald Trump signed into law rules suspending financial assistance to the PA as long as it continued to pay benefits to Palestinians linked to "terrorist" entities, according to the criteria of the Israeli authorities.
The Hill
17 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Supreme Court revives terror victim lawsuits against Palestinian groups
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law allowing Americans injured by acts of terror in the Middle East to take Palestinian leadership groups to U.S. courts for damages. In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled that the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) does not violate the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s due process rights by forcing them to consent to federal courts' authority. The decision means that lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts. The justices reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's ruling finding that the law denied the groups a fair legal process and directed the lower court to hold further proceedings consistent with the court's opinion. 'The PSJVTA reasonably ties the assertion of federal jurisdiction over the PLO and PA to conduct that involves the United States and implicates sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. 'We hold that the statute's provision for personal jurisdiction comports with the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment,' he said. Congress enacted the law in 2019 to let victim lawsuits move forward against the PA and PLO, responding to a series of court decisions that found the victim's families had no jurisdiction to sue. The justices consolidated two cases for arguments in April, a Justice Department appeal and an appeal by the family of Ari Fuld, an Israeli American fatally stabbed at a shopping mall in the West Bank in 2018. The Justice Department argued that Congress determined the PA and PLO would be made open to U.S. civil suits if they made payments to representatives of terrorists who injured or killed Americans or maintained a certain presence in the country. Former U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who held the role in the Biden administration, wrote in court papers that a lower court's finding those conditions fall short rests on a 'rigid and misconceived' application of the law. The Biden administration initially intervened in Fuld's case — which received bipartisan support, including through a friend-of-the-court brief authorized by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — and another case brought by 11 American families who sued the Palestinian leadership groups two decades ago for several attacks in Israel, winning more than $650 million in a 2015 trial. In April, under the Trump administration, Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler argued before the justices that the legislative and the executive branches together determined that it would prevent terrorism to find the PA and PLO consented to jurisdiction in federal courts. The justices should not override that assessment, owing both branches 'virtually absolute deference,' he said. A lawyer for the PA and PLO argued that personal jurisdiction is 'over and above' what Congress can prescribe. He pointed to piracy as an example, noting that while piracy has been illegal since the nation's founding, 'no one' thought Congress would let pirates be tried in the U.S. without being present there. 'That's never been the law,' lawyer Mitchell Berger said.
