US Supreme Court weighs whether Americans can sue Palestinian Authority
The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether American victims of attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank can sue the Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts.
The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Americans, or their relatives, killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the occupied West Bank have filed a number of suits seeking damages.
In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $654m to the US victims of attacks that took place in the early 2000s.
Appeals courts dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds.
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The Supreme Court is weighing a decision at a time when Israel’s war on Gaza is making its way into US courts.
Earlier this year, a group of survivors from the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel sued the Al Jazeera network, which is based in Qatar, in a US court, alleging that it assisted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in spreading propaganda, recruiting activists and inciting violence.
The lawsuit was filed at a US District Court in Washington, DC, on 23 February, according to StandWithUS, which says they assisted in preparing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks "financial compensation and justice for victims and victims’ families of the October 7th attacks and ensuing war".
The Supreme Court has to decide on a law passed by US Congress in 2019 - the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act - 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, but a majority of the justices on the conservative-majority Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to uphold it.
"Congress and the president are the ones who make fairness judgments when we're talking about the national security and foreign policy of the United States," justice Brett Kavanaugh said.
Deputy solicitor general Edwin Kneedler, representing the Trump administration, agreed, saying the courts should not substitute themselves for Congress or the president.
"Congress and the president made a judgment that is entitled to virtually absolute deference - that it is appropriate to subject the PA and the PLO to jurisdiction," Kneedler said.
"In this case, respondents had a chance to avoid that by just stopping those activities, but they didn't," he said.
Mitchell Berger, representing the PA and PLO, said assigning jurisdiction is "over and above what Congress can prescribe”.
He called on the Supreme Court to reaffirm the Second US Court of Appeals ruling that the law denied the groups a fair legal process.
Berger used an example of piracy to challenge the premise of the Congressional law. He said that while piracy has been illegal since the US’s founding, “no one” believed Congress had a right to allow pirates to be tried in the US without being present there, he said.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling before the end of its term in June.
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