The Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority, reduced the freedom of action of federal agencies on Friday, in the crosshairs of ultraliberal circles crusading against “bureaucracy”, by going back on 40 years of jurisprudence.
This case law, known as the “Chevron doctrine”, gave the last word to government agencies in their field of competence, for example in matters of the environment, social protection or consumers. It required federal courts to follow the “reasonable” interpretation of these agencies in cases of ambiguity or silence in the law.
“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency acted within its statutory authority and cannot defer to that agency’s interpretation of the law simply because it is ambiguous,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote on behalf of the six-member conservative majority against the progressives.
“Chevron is canceled,” he continued.
Chevron jurisprudence “has become a pillar of modern government, supporting regulatory efforts of all kinds—to name a few on clean air and water, food and drug safety, and honesty of financial markets,” objects progressive Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent.
“Congress knows that it does not write — in fact cannot write — perfectly comprehensive laws,” she said, criticizing the majority for having decided this session “to limit the powers of agencies, despite indications from Congress to the contrary.”
She was referring in particular to a decision of the Court on Thursday, by the same majority of the six conservatives against the three progressives, denying the American policeman of the financial markets, the SEC, the power to sanction individuals or companies via its own administrative judges rather than go through ordinary civil justice.
“Shocks to the system”
Critics of the Chevron case law argued that the interpretation of laws falls to the judiciary and not to federal agencies, which depend on the executive branch.
“A reversal of the Chevron jurisprudence would be an unjustified shock to the legal system,” argued during the debates in January the legal adviser to the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, Elizabeth Prelogar, highlighting the risks of instability that it would cause. .
In this hypothesis, she predicted a legal cacophony, with “different rules in different places in the country”.
But most conservative judges appeared resistant to these arguments.
One of them, Brett Kavanaugh, argued that this instability was inherent in democratic institutions.
“The Chevron case law itself causes shocks to the system when a new administration comes in,” he retorted, referring to the four-year presidential term, renewable once.
These upheavals concern “both telecommunications law and financial markets, as well as competition and environmental law,” listed Mr. Kavanaugh.
Ironically, when it was passed in 1984, the decision represented a success for the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan, who accused liberal judges of burying businesses in exorbitant regulations.
