Supreme Court judge tears up COVID lockdown and vaccine policy
Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch issues excoriating review of COVID lockdown and vaccine policies, calling them “one of the greatest breaches of civil liberties in the nation’s history”
- Justice Neil Gorsuch labeled the avalanche of lockdown measures imposed during the pandemic as one of the ‘biggest breaches of civil liberties’
- He said leaders at the state and federal level were issuing emergency decrees ‘on a breathtaking scale’
- Congress and state legislatures remained silent “too often” when strict rules were enacted, he added
A Supreme Court judge has labeled the avalanche of covid lockdown measures imposed across America as one of “the greatest breaches of civil liberties in this country’s peacetime history.”
Judge Neil Gorsuch delivered a staggering overview of the restrictions imposed by executive officials at both the state and federal levels.
In a statement written as part of a Supreme Court case on Title 42, Gorsuch said emergency decrees have been issued “on a breathtaking scale” during the pandemic.
“Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders and forced people to stay at home. They closed businesses and schools, public and private,” he wrote.
“They closed churches while allowing casinos and other favored businesses to continue. They threatened offenders with not only civil but also criminal sanctions.’
Judge Neil Gorsuch delivered a staggering overview of the restrictions imposed by executive officials at both the state and federal levels
The judge, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump in 2017, gave examples of how authorities monitored church parking lots, registered license plates and issued warnings that attendance at even field services meets all state social distancing and hygiene requirements . may amount to criminal conduct’.
He explained how “federal executive officials also got in the act” through vaccine mandates, including threats of firing for employees and service members who refused.
“Along the way, it seems that federal officials have been pressuring social media companies to withhold information about pandemic policies they disagreed with,” Gorsuch added.
The emergency decree was issued “at breakneck speed” while Congress and state legislatures “were too often silent.”
The statement was made as the Supreme Court rejected a case brought by Republican states seeking to enforce Title 42 public health policies that allowed the US to deny asylum seekers during the pandemic.
Judges said the case was moot because Title 42 would expire anyway after the Biden administration announced that the public health emergency would end on May 11.
Referring to the wider issue of strict lockdown policies during the pandemic, Gorsuch added: ‘No doubt many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it.
‘One lesson could be: fear and the desire for security are strong forces. They can lead to a cry for action – almost any action – as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat.
“A leader or an expert who claims he can solve anything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove to be an irresistible force.”
He concluded: “Make no mistake: bold action by the executive is sometimes necessary and appropriate. But when emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others.
“And ruling by an indefinite emergency order risks leaving us all with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties that are just as hollow.”
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