The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Iraq has immunity from lawsuits brought by Americans abused by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The court in a unanimous opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia ruled that Iraq’s immunity was restored by an order of President George W. Bush issued under a law giving him that authority, the Associated Press reports.
The plaintiffs included CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, who was held for more than a month during the Gulf War in 1991, AP Says.Others who sued were the children of an oil rig supervisor and an aircraft maintenance supervisor.
Such suits could have resulted in $1 billion or more in liability for the country’s new government, according to earlier reports.
“To a layperson, the notion of the president’s suspending the operation of a valid law might seem strange,” Scalia wrote in the opinion (PDF). “But the practice is well established, at least in the sphere of foreign affairs. … The granting of presidential waiver authority is particularly apt with respect to congressional elimination of foreign sovereign immunity, since the granting or denial of that immunity was historically the case-by-case prerogative of the executive branch.”
The consolidated cases are Iraq v. Beaty and Iraq v. Simon.