Political Question Doctrine

• Author: International Law Group
• Pages: 113-114

Page 113

Plaintiffs here are the descendants of Chagossians. These peoples are indigenous residents of the Chagos Islands, British dependencies in the central Indian Ocean south of India.

They filed suit against the U. S., and several senior executive officials (defendants), alleging that the government had forcibly removed them from their homes in 1965 in order to build a military base. The plaintiff s specifically claimed forced relocation; torture; racial discrimination; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; genocide; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligence; trespass; and destruction of real and personal property.

The district court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss all of the plaintiff s' claims. The court held that the individual defendants were immune from suit under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. ß 2679. The Act converts any claims against an employee of the federal government acting withinPage 114 the scope of his employment into claims against the U. S. under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The court dismissed the FTCA claims (1) because of plaintiffs' failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and (2) because the alleged injuries arose on foreign soil, an exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity in ß 2680(k).

Turning then to the "political question" doctrine, the lower court dismissed the remaining claims against the U. S. for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Bancoult v. McNamara, 370 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C 2004). On plaintiff s' appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviews the dismissals solely under the political question doctrine and affirms the district court's judgment. The Court initially notes that the nonjusticiability of a political question is primarily a function of the separation of powers, and applies the analytical framework laid out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962). The Court fi rst concludes that the Constitution textually allocates foreign policy decisions to the political departments of the government, the Executive and...