The Debanking Scandal

 

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Associate Professor

Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology

(academic title & affiliation for identification purposes only)

 

28 July 2023

 

The Guardian

Letter to the Editor

guardian.letters@guardian.co.uk

 

RE: Ann Francke, ‘Was Alison Rose held to a higher standard because she is a woman?,’ The Guardian (27 July 2023, 18:37 BST), <https://tinyurl.com/3a6xrycy>.

 

Ann Francke writes that: “Alison Rose, who resigned on Wednesday as chief executive of NatWest Group, which owns Coutts [Bank], clearly made a serious error of judgment in discussing the former UKIP leader’s [Nigel Farage’s] case with a [BBC] journalist. It was an error she accepted and for which she readily apologised.” If Rose had sincerely accepted that she and Coutts Bank had made an error, she would have offered Nigel Farage the opportunity to continue to bank at Coutts under the same terms which he had enjoyed prior to his being “debanked” along with a concomitant promise not to terminate his account in the future absent good cause and due process. Instead, Rose offered Farage only “alternative” banking arrangements—without explanation what that might mean and without any explanation why he should entertain accepting any private banking services, including confidentiality, amounting to less than what other valued bank customers receive as a matter of course.

Alison Rose’s offer was hardly recognizable as an acceptance of responsibility. [Post July 31: Alison Rose’s offer was hardly recognizable as an acceptance of responsibility. It is true that Rose’s successor at Coutts Bank has offered Nigel Farage his accounts back, but that only illustrates how poor Rose was in offering a timely and fundamentally fair response to a crisis she had, in large part, put into motion.]

Is mise, le meas, 

Seth Barrett Tillman

(academic title & affiliation for identification purposes only)

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘The Debanking Scandal,’ New Reform Club (July 28, 2023, 6:08 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-debanking-scandal.html>; 

Some Thoughts on How One Ought to React to Supreme Court Rulings?

 

 

Letter from Mark Tushnet and Aaron Belkin to the Biden Administration (2023):

We do not believe that President Biden should simply ignore every MAGA ruling. The President should act when MAGA justices issue high-stakes rulings that are based on gravely mistaken constitutional interpretations, and when presidential action predicated on his administration’s constitutional interpretations would substantially mitigate the damage posed by the ruling in question. (emphasis added)

Steven G. Calabresi, Caesarism, Departmentalism, and Professor Paulsen, 83 Minn. L. Rev. 1421, 1433–34 (1999):

The President is obligated to execute all court judgments absent a clear mistake, even those that concern the scope of his constitutionally rooted executive privilege. (emphasis added)

Michael Stokes Paulsen, Lincoln and Judicial Authority, 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1227, 1301 (2008):

 

But if, with Lincoln, we think this notion of judicial supremacy wrong, then there is nothing wrong with resistance, through all available legal means, to Supreme Court decisions that one in good faith believes improper. The Constitution is not the exclusive province of the Supreme Court. The Court’s decisions are not the Constitution. And neither the Supreme Court nor any other authority properly may declare resistance to judicial decisions to be illegitimate. (emphasis added)

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Some Thoughts on How One Ought to React to Supreme Court Rulings?, New Reform Club (July 21, 2023, 12:37 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/some-thoughts-on-how-one-ought-to-react.html>;

Two Article III Queries

 

U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 states:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

It is customarily understood to mean this:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and [in] those [Cases] in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

But why can it not be equally understood as meaning this:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and [in all] those [Cases] in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

To put it another way: If “those” means “Cases,” and if “in” modifies “those,” then why should not “all” also modify “those”?

And, if “those” means “Cases,” then does that lean toward showing parity between “Cases” and “Controversies” (which is another term used in Article III)?

Seth

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Two Article III Queries,’ New Reform Club (July 21, 2023, 8:01 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/07/an-article-iii-query.html>;