When the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Biden administration’s vaccinate-or-test rule for private employers last Thursday, the response from the three dissenters was familiar. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan argued that courts should not override the judgment of the government experts who know best how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The dissenters were right that the courts are not charged with formulating public health policies. But the courts are charged with deciding whether those policies are legal, and they forsake that responsibility when they reflexively defer to politicians and bureaucrats who claim an emergency justifies unprecedented restrictions on freedom.
