The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to rule on the legality of a 2019 federal law designed to make it easier to sue Palestinian officials over Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel and elsewhere.
The judges upheld appeals by US President Joe Biden’s government and a group of US victims and their families against a lower court’s ruling that the law violated the due process rights of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Authority. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in accordance with the Constitution of the United States.
The law is called the Promoting Safety and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case and rule by the end of June. The decision to look into the case was made during the war in Gaza, in which Israel launched an air and ground attack on the Hamas-ruled enclave after Palestinian militants overran Israeli border communities in October 2023.
For years, U.S. courts have debated whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and the PLO for actions taken abroad.
Under the relevant text of the 2019 law, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority would automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conducted activities in the United States or made payments to people who attacked Americans.
Plaintiffs in the Supreme Court litigation include families who won a $655 million judgment in 2015 in a civil case alleging that Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings in Jerusalem between 2002 and 2004.
According to the plaintiffs, authorities and employees of both organizations planned, directed and participated in these attacks.
The Manhattan-based U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the ruling in 2016, concluding that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over the Palestinian defendants.
Congress subsequently passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, and new lawsuits were filed by the families and relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian in 2018.
In 2022, a federal judge in New York ruled that the law was unconstitutional due to due process violations. Congress, wrote U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, “cannot simply declare whatever it wants to be a consensus.”
The plaintiffs asked the 2nd Circuit to renew their claims, but it refused, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court.
A lawyer representing the two Palestinian organizations did not initially respond to a request for comment.
Source: Terra
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