QUALIFIED IMMUNITY SHOULD BE ABOLISHED: Federal Officials Should Be Accountable for Their Wrongdoing.

Federal officials’ special status results not from federal statutes but from common law; it is the nation’s judges who have, over time, made it harder for victims of government wrongdoing to hold the government accountable, rather than easier. Judges have fashioned sweeping doctrines of immunity that insulate federal and state officials from facing any liability. Under these doctrines, victims of government wrongdoing cannot recover damages from government officials unless they can point to some prior case that has found the government conduct unlawful.

Judicial activism at its worst — no statute has done this, just judges making policy that they like. Oh, they also found judges are absolutely immune from suit.