Victims of terrorism have been granted the right to sue Palestinian organizations in U.S. courts, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday.
The justices ruled 9-0 in favor of upholding the constitutionality of the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019.
As CBN News reported, the law passed by Congress says organizations like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) are consenting to U.S. jurisdiction if they conduct activities in the U.S. or pay people who attack Americans abroad.
Plaintiffs in the case included a 7-year-old boy who suffered shrapnel wounds to his brain from a suicide bombing, and the parents of four students who died in a bomb blast at a university cafeteria.
An attorney representing the P.A. cited the Fifth Amendment essentially arguing it was immune from prosecution and the U.S. could not impose jurisdiction over it just because they paid people who attacked Americans.
“Nothing reflects submission of the antecedent sovereign authority of the U.S. The U.S. can’t say to Palestine ‘do or don’t make that payment.’ That is not submission to a U.S. forum, and indeed, that’s what the court of appeals said and has applied in this case,” Michael Berger argued earlier this year. “All of our conduct is unrelated conduct and has previously been held to be insufficient to support jurisdiction.”
The high court decided otherwise, rejecting the PLO and P.A.’s argument that allowing victims to sue them in U.S. courts violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process.
“It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to Anti-Terrorism Act compensation,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Supreme Court’s decision now allows American terror victims to sue Palestinian entities in U.S. federal courts and deems it constitutional.
The ruling is being hailed as a major legal milestone for American victims and their families.
“The PLO and P.A. are no longer shielded from accountability for incentivizing the killing of Israel through their ‘pay-for-slay’ policy,” Ahmad Sharawi, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS.
“This case sets the precedent that U.S. jurisdiction can now entail terrorist groups that harm American citizens despite their lack of consent to U.S. jurisdiction,” he added.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who authored the 2019 law, praised the high court for its decision.
“At long last, Americans impacted by international terrorism now have a clear path to justice. I hope today’s ruling brings some measure of peace to those who’ve been injured or suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of Palestinian terrorist organizations,” Grassley said. “This decision sends a resounding message that foreign terrorists who intend to harm our countrymen can expect to feel the full weight of the U.S. justice system upon them.”
Meanwhile, the court declined to specify what limits, if any, the Fifth Amendment places on the government’s power “to hale foreign defendants into U.S. courts.”
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In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, along with Justice Neil Gorsuch, said he would go further and held that the Fifth Amendment does not impose any “limits on the Federal Government’s power to extend federal jurisdiction beyond the Nation’s borders.”
He wrote that “the court leaves for another day the task of defining the Fifth Amendment’s outer limits on the territorial jurisdiction of federal courts.”
But he added, “I am skeptical that entities such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority enjoy any constitutional rights at all.”
