US SC halts reinstatement of fired federal employees

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court blocked on Tuesday a judge’s order for President Donald Trump’s administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, acting in a dispute over his effort to slash the federal workforce and dismantle parts of the government.

The court put on hold San Francisco-based US Judge William Alsup’s March 13 injunction requiring six federal agencies to reinstate thousands of recently hired probationary employees while litigation challenging the legality of the dismissals continues.

The court in a brief, unsigned order said the nine non-profit organisations who were granted an injunction in response to their lawsuit lacked the legal standing to sue. The court said that its order did not address claims by other plaintiffs in the case, “which did not form the basis of the district court’s preliminary injunction.”

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented from the decision. Alsup’s ruling applied to probationary employees at the US Department of Defence, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

In a separate case, a federal judge in Baltimore also ordered the administration to reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers at 18 federal agencies in 19 mostly Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, which had sued over the mass firings. Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk have moved quickly to shrink the federal bureaucracy and remake the government.