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Sovereign Immunity In A Constitutional Government: The Federal Employment Discrimination Cases, Charles F. Abernathy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Very early in our history we took steps to insure that the.rule of law, as expressed in the Constitution, would prevail over the mortals who run our government. Yet even as the concepts of rule of law and judicial review came into ascendancy, we also harbored the sovereign immunity doctrine as a restraint on judicial power and as an apparent repudiation of the rule of law.

The inherent antagonism between the rule of law and the sovereign immunity doctrine has produced much mischief in our courts...this Article will argue that the sovereign immunity doctrine is not anticonstitutional, but rather reflects …