How correct is it to say that the TRO and preliminary injunctions mandates government action? Isn’t it the law (congressional appropriation) that is mandating the disbursement of allocated funds? I don’t see how the district court is the one mandating action. Is this just some rhetorical device that presupposes where someone stands on the merits?
I guess what I mean, is can it be said that the TRO is prohibiting the action of impounding appropriations rather than mandating the action of disbursement?
Equity has no jurisdiction to create new statutory requirements, or to order non-compliance with otherwise valid statutory requirements.
Here, the USDC was met with an Executive policy which purported positively to repudiate its statutory obligation to fulfill contractual obligations.
Although the source of the Executive obligation be (putatively) statutory, the obligee decided not to fulfill that obligation.
Equitable intervention went not to the lawful execution of a Congressional law, but to the *decision* of the Executive putatively not to comply with that law.
The material term of the TRO purported direcrly to mandate Executive action in underlying compliance with a statutory duty putatively binding on it.
That the statutory duty be mandatory (if it is), doesn't mean that the mandatory terms embodied in the TRO aren't directed by injunction to compelling the Executive positively to comply.
It's certainly very questionable whether equitable power to mandate positive action might in principle be exercised under the formal order of a mere TRO.
This comment is pretty helpful to a layman like me. Is the impoundment of appropriated funds “positive action” by the executive branch? If yes, then does the TRO work to prohibit that action? The entire debacle of whether or not the TRO is mandating or prohibiting action seems so murky. Almost like it can be reasonably construed as prohibitory or mandatory in any given case.
You risk losing the forest for the trees in these cases, which is ultimately what the government wants. The overall issue is that an entire government agency was illegally destroyed. Everything else is downstream of that. In this specific case, the government can't comply with the TRO even if they wanted to because the work needed to comply with the TRO would need to be completed by an agency that no longer exists due to a brazenly illegal act.
How correct is it to say that the TRO and preliminary injunctions mandates government action? Isn’t it the law (congressional appropriation) that is mandating the disbursement of allocated funds? I don’t see how the district court is the one mandating action. Is this just some rhetorical device that presupposes where someone stands on the merits?
I guess what I mean, is can it be said that the TRO is prohibiting the action of impounding appropriations rather than mandating the action of disbursement?
Equity has no jurisdiction to create new statutory requirements, or to order non-compliance with otherwise valid statutory requirements.
Here, the USDC was met with an Executive policy which purported positively to repudiate its statutory obligation to fulfill contractual obligations.
Although the source of the Executive obligation be (putatively) statutory, the obligee decided not to fulfill that obligation.
Equitable intervention went not to the lawful execution of a Congressional law, but to the *decision* of the Executive putatively not to comply with that law.
The material term of the TRO purported direcrly to mandate Executive action in underlying compliance with a statutory duty putatively binding on it.
That the statutory duty be mandatory (if it is), doesn't mean that the mandatory terms embodied in the TRO aren't directed by injunction to compelling the Executive positively to comply.
It's certainly very questionable whether equitable power to mandate positive action might in principle be exercised under the formal order of a mere TRO.
This comment is pretty helpful to a layman like me. Is the impoundment of appropriated funds “positive action” by the executive branch? If yes, then does the TRO work to prohibit that action? The entire debacle of whether or not the TRO is mandating or prohibiting action seems so murky. Almost like it can be reasonably construed as prohibitory or mandatory in any given case.
You risk losing the forest for the trees in these cases, which is ultimately what the government wants. The overall issue is that an entire government agency was illegally destroyed. Everything else is downstream of that. In this specific case, the government can't comply with the TRO even if they wanted to because the work needed to comply with the TRO would need to be completed by an agency that no longer exists due to a brazenly illegal act.