Opinion ID: 4026399
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Right of Access to Federal Courts

Text: Lastly, plaintiffs argue that the District Court erred “because it violated the U.S. citizen Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to access the federal courts by applying immunity in this case.”60 This argument fails to convince. As we stated in Brzak v. United Nations, in which we rejected a virtually indistinguishable challenge to an application of Section 2 of the CPIUN, plaintiffs’ argument does little more “than question why immunities in general should exist.”61 But “legislatively and judicially crafted immunities of one sort or another have existed since well before the framing of the Constitution, have been 58 Hathaway et al., ante note 57, at 84. We express no opinion regarding the soundness of the distinction 59 drawn in the article between the offensive and defensive enforcement of treaties. 60 Pls.’ Br. 49. 61 See Brzak, 597 F.3d at 114. 21 extended and modified over time, and are firmly embedded in American law.”62 Plaintiffs’ argument, if correct, would seem to defeat not only the UN’s immunity, but also “judicial immunity, prosecutorial immunity, and legislative immunity.”63 Plaintiffs do not persuasively differentiate the quotidian and constitutionally permissible application of these doctrines from application of Section 2 of the CPIUN here.64