Preliminary Injunction
Noun – an injunction, simply, is an order (or a writ) issued
by the court that demands an
individual or person(s) to act - or restrains an individual or person(s)
from acting.
For an historical example, recall the attempted
desegregation in 1957 of the Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Segregationist groups were able to convince a
local chancellor/judge to issue an injunction against the admission of non-white students to the school in the
coming fall based on their “concerns” for potential violence.
Another injunction, delivered by Federal Judge Davies
nullified the earlier writ with a command that forced the school to move forward with the planned integration and
removed the National Guard brought in ostensibly to uphold law and order.
Injunctions a born of other issues and conflicts, and are
not a matter of legal right(s). In fact,
a request for an injunction can as easily be denied as approved. The facts in each case determine whether an
injunction will be issued, and the potential details for consideration (no puns intended) in the case of a not-so-distant pension bill cutting benefits will
provide many. And now it's here. We can expect Quinn's signature within a few days on the bill.
There will of course be the central argument provided by
Helen Kinney and Henry Green (thank you) in the 1970 Illinois Constitutional
Convention: Article XIII, Section 5.
Membership in any pension or retirement
system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any
agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual
relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.
While the General Assembly has acted with impunity in the
cutting of benefits to the future public workers in Illinois, they have yet to
pass a bill curtailing the benefits of active workers and current
retirees. That is, until Black Tuesday, December 3, 2013. Indeed, much of the concern
raised by those who practice law in the General Assembly has been, as
Representative Lou Lang tried to remind the Chicago Tribune, “whether or not it
is constitutional.” Whether it’s
legal. The Tribune is not concerned with
legality – or morality. Evidently, in the end, Representative Lang conveniently disremembered his earlier stance on constitutional legality.
Illinois Supreme Court |
Bills that may emerge from the “new” summer pension working-group
may be an amalgam of Madigan’s benefit-cutting bill SB1 or Cullerton’s union-backed
bill SB2404. In any case, any changes in
the wording to SB2404 will provide an immediate refusal to endorse by the
unions, and subsequent passage will likely produce a preliminary injunction. Remember, however, even union-backed SB2404
will face a legal reaction by the Illinois Retired Teachers Association, and
such a response might start as described below. The passage of Madigan's last mutation of SB1 on Black Tuesday makes possible variable responses to the earlier union-backed SB2404 moot. We know await Quinn's signing of the bill into law.
Because of the enormity of impact in the passage of such a
bill –one that will affect hundreds of thousands of Illinois families
and millions of citizens – all the unions would likely seek a restraining order
immediately. “A Restraining Order is granted to preserve the status quo of the
focus of controversy until the hearing on an application for a temporary
injunction. A Temporary Restraining
Order is an extraordinary remedy of short duration that is issued to prevent
unnecessary and irreparable injury” (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/injunction ). On the other hand, as the law's effect would take place on June 1, 2014, there may be enough time to beyond "temporary" immediately.
The Restraining
Order, even if Temporary, suspends further proceedings until a determination
whether an injunction is permissible can be filed with the court.
Remember, Restraining
Orders have life-spans, and in the case of a Temporary, such a provision can
quickly sunset.
During that
interim, union officials would seek a Preliminary Injunction, which would act
much like a Restraining Order, accept that such a writ would stop all
proceeding until legal determinations could be made.
Then, it’s the
court’s turn to consider the legality of the proposed bill.
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