Thursday, December 18, 2008

Judicial Restraint

The Illinois Supreme Court has denied the state Attorney General's request to remove Governor Rod Blagojevich from office on an emergency basis or to temporarily strip him of many of is powers. But the Court denied the requests "without comment" -- it hasn't even bothered to post the order on its own website (I suppose it might be up by the time you click) -- so it's a little hard to say what's really going on. It's not clear from the reporting whether the Court agreed with my analysis that it lacks power to remove the Governor for political or even criminal misdeeds (I'm sure this blog is highly influential in Illinois judicial circles) or whether the Court has merely denied the Attorney General's request for immediate relief, while retaining the potential for the case to move forward more slowly.

I'm guessing the Court doesn't want any part of the controversy. But if the Court thinks there's no legal basis for it to act in this kind of situation, it should say so.

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