Lạm quyền

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Jacob Sullum looks back on Covid and the Constitution. Here’s his conclusion:

COVID-19 did not kill the Constitution (hiến pháp). But the crisis made it vividly clear that we cannot count on politicians or bureaucrats to worry about limits on their authority, especially when they believe they are doing what is necessary to protect the public from a deadly danger. The task of enforcing those limits falls to judges who are willing to stick their necks out.

“All government power in this country, no matter how well-intentioned, derives only from the state and federal constitutions,” Texas Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Blacklock noted a month and a half after the first lockdowns. “Government power cannot be exercised in conflict with these constitutions, even in a pandemic (đại dịch)….If we tolerate (bao dung, dung thứ) unconstitutional (vi hiến) government orders during an emergency (trường hợp khẩn cấp), whether out of expediency (tính chất thủ đoạn, động cơ cá nhân) or fear, we abandon (bỏ rơi, ruồng bỏ) the Constitution at the moment we need it most.”

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