在特朗普案件中，最高法院不愿对抗
【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 9 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）随着对特朗普总统行政命令的第一波挑战传到法官手中，最高法院的形象开始发生巨大变化。最高法院发布了一系列狭隘的法律裁决，似乎是为了回避特朗普迅速扩大权力和重塑政府所带来的更大问题。《纽约时报》记者亚当·利普塔克对此作了下述报道。
过去二十年来，首席大法官小约翰·G·罗伯茨领导的最高法院并非以谦逊或谨慎著称。其标志性举动是大胆宣示权力，并以对宪法含义的笼统主张为后盾。
它废除了竞选财务法和《投票权法案》，推翻了宪法赋予的堕胎权，废除了高等教育中的平权行动，并对《第二修正案》进行了新的解释，以保护个人拥有枪支的权利。
但随着对特朗普总统行政命令的第一波挑战传到法官手中，最高法院的形象开始发生巨大变化。最高法院发布了一系列狭隘的法律裁决，似乎是为了回避特朗普迅速扩大权力和重塑政府所带来的更大问题。
周一，法院裁定，那些质疑政府将他们送往萨尔瓦多臭名昭著的监狱的委内瑞拉移民向错误的法庭提起了诉讼，而没有对根本的法律问题作出裁决。
周二，法官阻止了加利福尼亚州一名联邦法官的一项裁决，该裁决要求特朗普政府重新雇用数千名被解雇的、处于试用期的联邦工作人员。
法院的简短命令称，提起诉讼挑战解雇行为的非营利组织并未遭受足以使其具备起诉资格的损害。该裁决的实际影响可能有限，因为另一名初审法官要求恢复许多相同工人职位的裁决仍然有效。
大法官们的新做法似乎有多重目标：远离政治纷争；维护其合法性；或许最重要的是，避免与一位不断挑战法院合法性的总统摊牌。
特朗普则呼吁弹劾对他做出不利裁决的法官，并在社交媒体上暗示法院无权指示他该怎么做。他写道：“拯救国家的人不会违反任何法律。”
新案件被批评者称为最高法院的“影子案卷”，作为紧急申请，法官们必须迅速采取行动，且案件陈述不多，没有口头辩论。随后的简短命令通常决定是否暂停下级法院的初步和暂定裁决。因此，法官们可能不愿意在这种情况下做出重大声明，这是可以理解的。
但这些简化的做法也可能意味着，法官应该完全置身事外，让上诉以通常的方式进行，在一个庄严的地方，随着时间的推移做出持久的决定。
大法官埃琳娜·卡根（Elena Kagan）在周五对允许政府冻结教师培训补助金的命令的异议中写道：“当法院像本案一样，在判决时只提供最基本的简报、不进行辩论，而且几乎没有时间进行反思时，出错的风险就会增加。”
“当然，关于何时需要这样做，人们会有善意的分歧，”她补充道。“但在我看来，这起案件并不需要我们立即干预。我们不应该在紧急案件中制定新法律，而应该让争端以正常方式进行。”
康奈尔大学法学教授迈克尔·多夫表示，政府的诉讼策略鼓励了“狭隘的坚持主义”。
“在针对特朗普政府行为的众多诉讼进行辩护时，司法部经常提出吹毛求疵且可疑的程序异议，”他说。“政府称原告在错误的地区提起诉讼，寻求错误的补救措施，或起诉了错误的官员。”
多尔夫表示，周一的裁决认为委内瑞拉移民应该在德克萨斯州而不是华盛顿提起诉讼，“这只会让不诚信的政府进一步耍诡计”。
芝加哥大学法学教授戴维·A·施特劳斯 (David A. Strauss) 表示，司法极简主义有其可取之处。
“传统观念认为，法院应该尽可能避免棘手的问题，即使这意味着要根据高度技术性甚至可疑的法律依据作出决定，”他说，并引用了大法官路易斯·布兰代斯的言论：“我们做的最重要的事情就是不去做。”
“但在堕胎、平权行动、环境保护、投票权以及特朗普的免于起诉等问题上，最高法院却做出了近乎相反的举动，”施特劳斯说。“所以，你会好奇，最高法院对于我们宪法体系面临的更大威胁究竟来自何处有何看法。”
罗伯茨肯定在平衡许多因素，包括保护其法院的合法性和权威性、尽可能寻求共识以及确认必须遵守法治的总统权力的强大愿景。
上个月，首席大法官发表声明，回应特朗普等人的呼吁，弹劾审理委内瑞拉移民案件的法官詹姆斯·E·博斯伯格 (James E. Boasberg)，其中一些算计似乎正在发挥作用。
首席大法官表示：“两个多世纪以来，弹劾并不是对司法裁决分歧的适当回应，这一点已得到证实。正常的上诉审查程序就是为此目的而存在的。”
最近的所有多数意见均未署名，这是法院对此类申请作出裁决时的常规做法。但这种做法值得商榷。
1990 年，在联邦上诉法院任职期间，于 2020 年去世的大法官露丝·巴德·金斯伯格 (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) 写道，将意见书署名“有助于追究法官个人的责任”，并“将法官的良知和声誉置于危险之中”。托马斯·杰斐逊 (Thomas Jefferson) 在 1822 年写道，另一种选择“对懒惰、谦虚和无能的人来说无疑是方便的”。
无论如何，这些命令都没有什么内容。
其中一项裁决要求“暂缓”对审判法官禁止解雇政府监察员的命令提出的质疑。另一项裁决要求一位要求政府恢复对外援助的法官“明确政府必须履行哪些义务”。
第三项裁决允许政府暂时冻结教师培训补助金，该裁决依据了一系列法律和原则——《行政程序法》、主权豁免权、《塔克法案》——得出结论，挑战者很可能在错误的法庭上提起了诉讼。
大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊 (Ketanji Brown Jackson) 在异议中写道，这些都是“辅助门槛和补救问题”，回避了真正的问题：政府的行为是否合法？
周一裁决的委内瑞拉移民案件涉及多个重大问题，包括1798年《敌对外国法案》的合宪性和正确解释，该法案赋予总统在战争时期拘留或驱逐敌国公民的权力，以及这些移民是否实际上是政府认为受该法案管辖的帮派成员。
“我们没有得出这些结论，”多数法官表示，并裁定移民应该在德克萨斯州而不是华盛顿州提起诉讼。
多数人补充说，政府必须允许移民采取一些程序，并表示必须告知他们根据 1798 年法律将被驱逐出境。多数人写道：“必须在合理的时间内以适当的方式发出通知，让他们能够在驱逐前在适当的场所寻求人身保护令救济。”
这是一项具体的裁决，获得了九票赞成。但大法官索尼娅·索托马约尔持不同意见，称鉴于政府试图逃避司法审查，并明显无视初审法院的命令，整个计划仍然存在缺陷。
“政府在这场诉讼中的行为对法治构成了极大威胁，”她写道。“目前，本法院的多数法官以酌情公平救济来奖励政府的行为，这是站不住脚的。我们作为一个国家和法院，应该做得更好。”
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：最高法院的新做法似乎有多重目标：远离政治纷争，维护其合法性，并避免与一位不断挑战法院合法性的总统摊牌。Eric Lee/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
In Trump cases, Supreme Court retreats from confrontation
By Adam Liptak New York Times,Updated April 8, 2025, 4:52 p.m.
The Supreme Court’s new approach appears to have multiple goals: to stay out of the political fray, to maintain their legitimacy, and avoid a showdown with a president who has relentlessly challenged the legitimacy of the courts.Eric Lee/NYT
WASHINGTON – The court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. over the last two decades has not been known for its modesty or caution. Its signature move was a bold assertion of power backed by sweeping claims about the meaning of the Constitution.
It gutted campaign finance laws and the Voting Rights Act, overturned the constitutional right to abortion, did away with affirmative action in higher education, and adopted a new interpretation of the Second Amendment that protects an individual’s right to own guns.
But as the first wave of challenges to President Trump’s blitz of executive orders has reached the justices, a very different portrait of the court is emerging. It has issued a series of narrow and legalistic rulings that seem calculated to avoid the larger issues presented by a president rapidly working to expand power and reshape government.
On Monday, the court ruled that Venezuelan migrants who challenged the administration’s plans to send them to a notorious prison in El Salvador had filed their lawsuits in the wrong court, without ruling on the underlying legal issues.
On Tuesday, the justices blocked a ruling from a federal judge in California that had ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been on probationary status.
The court’s brief order said the nonprofit groups that had sued to challenge the dismissals had not suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue. The practical consequences of the ruling may be limited, as another trial judge’s ruling requiring the reinstatement of many of the same workers remains in place.
The justices’ new approach appears to have multiple goals: to stay out of the political fray; to maintain their legitimacy; and, perhaps most importantly, to avoid a showdown with a president who has relentlessly challenged the legitimacy of the courts.
Trump, for his part, has called for the impeachment of judges who ruled against him and has suggested on social media that courts are powerless to tell him what to do. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he wrote.
The new cases have arrived on what critics call the court’s “shadow docket,” as emergency applications requiring the justices to move very quickly, on thin briefs and no oral arguments. The terse orders that follow typically decide whether to pause lower court rulings, themselves preliminary and tentative. It is understandable, then, that the justices may be reluctant to make grand pronouncements in that setting.
But those streamlined practices may also suggest that the justices should instead stay out of the way entirely and let appeals proceed in the usual way, at a stately place that would in the fullness of time produce lasting decisions.
“The risk of error increases,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent Friday from an order letting the administration freeze teacher-training grants, “when this court decides cases — as here — with bare-bones briefing, no argument, and scarce time for reflection.”
“There will of course be good-faith disagreements about when that is called for,” she added. “But in my view, nothing about this case demanded our immediate intervention. Rather than make new law on our emergency docket, we should have allowed the dispute to proceed in the ordinary way.”
Michael Dorf, a law professor at Cornell University, said the administration’s litigation tactics encouraged “petty sticklerism.”
“In defending against the multitude of lawsuits challenging Trump administration actions, the Justice Department has frequently made nitpicky and dubious procedural objections,” he said. “The government says the plaintiffs filed in the wrong district, sought the wrong remedy, or sued the wrong official.”
Monday’s ruling that Venezuelan migrants should have brought their challenge in Texas rather than Washington, Dorf said, “invites further chicanery from an administration that is acting in bad faith.”
David A. Strauss, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said there was something to be said for judicial minimalism.
“There is a traditional idea that the court should avoid difficult issues if it can, even if that means deciding on highly technical or even questionable legal grounds,” he said, citing Justice Louis Brandeis’s statement that “the most important thing we do is not doing.”
“But the court has done something close to the opposite when it came to abortion, affirmative action, environmental protection, voting rights, and Trump’s immunity from prosecution,” Strauss said. “So you wonder about the court’s sense of where the greater threat to our constitutional system is coming from.”
Roberts is surely balancing a number of factors, including protecting his court’s legitimacy and authority, finding consensus where he can and affirming a robust vision of presidential power that must nonetheless abide by the rule of law.
Some of those calculations appeared to be at work last month, when the chief justice issued a statement reacting to calls from Trump and others to impeach Judge James E. Boasberg, who was handling the case on the Venezuelan migrants.
“For more than two centuries,” the chief justice said, “it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
All of the recent majority opinions were unsigned, which is routine when the court rules on such applications. But that practice is open to question.
While serving on a federal appeals court in 1990, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020, wrote that putting a name to an opinion “serves to hold the individual judge accountable” and “puts the judge’s conscience and reputation on the line.” The alternative, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1822, “is certainly convenient for the lazy, the modest and the incompetent.”
In any event, the orders said very little.
One ruled that a challenge to a trial judge’s order barring the firing of a government watchdog should be “held in abeyance.” Another instructed a judge who had told the administration to restore foreign aid to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill.”
A third, allowing the administration to temporarily freeze teacher-training grants, relied on a mélange of laws and doctrines — the Administrative Procedure Act, sovereign immunity, the Tucker Act — to conclude that the challengers had most likely sued in the wrong court.
These were, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent, “ancillary threshold and remedial questions” that ducked the real one: Were the administration’s actions lawful?
There were large issues at play in the case of the Venezuelan migrants decided Monday, including the constitutionality and proper interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which grants the president authority to detain or deport citizens of enemy nations in times of war, and whether the migrants were in fact members of a gang the administration contends is covered by the act.
“We do not reach those arguments,” the majority said, ruling only that the migrants should have sued in Texas rather than Washington.
The majority added that the government had to allow the migrants a modicum of process, saying they must be told they are subject to deportation under the 1798 law. “The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the majority wrote.
That was a concrete ruling, and it commanded nine votes. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in dissent that the whole enterprise was nevertheless flawed in light of the administration’s efforts to evade judicial review and its apparent disregard of a trial court’s order.
“The government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law,” she wrote. “That a majority of this court now rewards the government for its behavior with discretionary equitable relief is indefensible. We, as a nation and a court of law, should be better than this.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
