Section 8 of the draft proposal for the $700 billion bailout is starting to generate considerable interest. It states:
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Point of Law states that this “seems like a lot of independence for a program budgeted at $700 billion, but I agree that getting trial lawyers involved could do even more harm than allowing Congress to keep an active hand in.” International commentators are not as agreeable. A columnist in Australia’s The Age writes today,
If the actions of our rulers are beyond the rule of law then those who usurp that rule are presumably above it. To paraphrase the English playwright Oliver Goldsmith, Herr Comrade Paulson has not just offended the law but done something far more terrible — he hath put the law out of office.
And when “the Act” is authorised, does the authority above “any court of law of administrative agency” include international law?
