WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Cisco Systems v. Doe, a case in which the Court considered, among other questions, whether the Torture Victim Protection Act imposes liability on those who aid and abet torture, Constitutional Accountability Center Legal Fellow Harith Khawaja issued this reaction:

In today’s disappointing decision, the Supreme Court held that the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) does not impose liability upon those who aid and abet torture. In reaching that result, the Court largely ignored the textual arguments about the ordinary meaning of “subjects to” that the amicus brief we filed in the case laid out, and failed to appreciate the distinction between this case and Central Bank of Denver, which interpreted a different statute with materially different language.

By contrast, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent embraced the arguments our brief presented. Quoting language from our brief and citing cases we highlighted, she recognized that the majority had effectively created a “magic-words test” by requiring Congress to “incant” the words “aid and abet” to impose civil aiding and abetting liability.

Echoing arguments presented in our brief, Justice Sotomayor explained that such a magic-words test is inconsistent with the Court’s regular approach to statutory interpretation, because the “fact that Congress chose to use certain language” in one statute “hardly means it was ‘foreclose[d] . . .  from using different language to accomplish th[e] same goal.’” Justice Sotomayor also recognized that the statutory text Central Bank of Denver interpreted was narrower than the TVPA’s language, making that case inapposite here. While Justices Kagan and Jackson concurred in the majority’s holding on the TVPA question, they, too, agreed with Justice Sotomayor that the majority had incorrectly extended Central Bank to impose a “magic words” test for civil aiding and abetting liability.

In short, today’s decision closes the courthouse doors for many victims of torture, depriving them of the justice that Congress afforded them.