El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company and Salah El Din Ahmed Mohammed Idris v. United States of America

Court	United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, United States
Case number	07-5174
Decision title	Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Decision date	8 June 2010
Parties	El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries Company Salah El Din Ahmed Mohammed Idris United States of America
Other names	El-Shifa VII
Categories	Terrorism
Keywords	motion to dismiss, non-justiciable, political question doctrine, Terrorism
Links	Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Other countries involved	Sudan

Summary

In August 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shaifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, arguing that it was a base for terrorism. Later, it was proven that the plan had no ties to terrorists. Therefore, El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries brought complaints against the United States in the US Court of Federal Claims.

In November 2005, the District Court found that El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries raised a non-justiciable political question (which foresees that courts have no authority to hear or adjudge on matters that raise political, rather than legal, questions) in asking the Court to adjudge on the President’s powers to designate as enemy property the private property of the chemical plant in Sudan.

On 27 March 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the District Court, holding that the case raised a political question, and therefore barring the court from hearing the matter.

On 3 August 2009, the Court of Appeals ordered that the case be re-heard by the court sitting en banc (where the case is heard before all judges of the court).

On 8 June 2010, the Court of Appeals sitting en banc affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of El-Shifa’s claims on the grounds that the question brought before the Court remained a political question despite the plaintiffs’ efforts to characterize the case differently. Accordingly, the claims could not be heard by the court.

Procedural history

A lawsuit filed with the US Court of Federal Claims for $50 million in losses was dismissed in March 2003 as non-justiciable based on the US ‘political question doctrine’.

On 11 August 2004, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision.

Another claim was filed seeking damages for negligence and trespass. On 29 November 2005, the District Court of Colombia granted the government’s motion to dismiss the claim based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Court found that sovereign immunity barred the claims.

The plaintiff’s motion to alter the judgment regarding their equitable relief was later denied as well.

On 27 March 2009, the Court of Appeals held that “courts are not a forum for second-guessing the merits of foreign policy and national security decisions” (p. 8), and upheld the District Court’s decision.

On 3 August 2009, the Court of Appeals ordered that its previous judgment be vacated and the case be re-heard by the Court sitting en banc.

Related developments

In January 2011, the US Supreme Court refused to reconsider the dismissal. See 'Court Won’t Reconsider Sudan Lawsuit Dismissal', CBS News, 18 January 2011.

Legally relevant facts

In August 1998, the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden. In retaliation, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The attack was justified by the claim that the plant was a base for terrorism. US officials also claimed that the plant was used in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The plaintiffs denied the accusations. It was later proved that the plant had no ties to bin Laden and that only medical products were manufactured at the plant. Having learnt that their initial justifications were false, officials in the Clinton Administration offered new explanations, claiming that the plant owners supported terrorism (pp. 2-7).

After the Court of Appeals dismissed the petitioners’ claims on the grounds that they raise a political question and, therefore, cannot be heard by the court, the petitioners requested that the case be re-heard by the Court of Appeals sitting en banc. The Court of Appeals granted the plaintiffs’ petition and ordered the case to be re-heard by the court sitting en banc (p. 7).

Core legal questions

Did the District Court err in its dismissal of the complaints on grounds that they raise a political question?

Court's holding and analysis

The Court of Appeals found that “the strategic choices directing the nation’s foreign affairs are constitutionally committed to the political branches reflect[ing] the institutional limitations of the judiciary and the lack of manageable standards to channel any judicial inquiry into these matters” (p. 13). Furthermore, the court “must decline to reconsider what are essentially policy choices because ‘[t]he Judiciary is particularly ill suited to make such decisions…’” (p. 14)

“In military matters in particular, the courts lack the competence to assess the strategic decision to deploy force or to create standards to determine whether the use of force was justified or well-founded” (p. 14).

Accordingly, the Court of Appeals concluded that “[u]nder the political question doctrine, the foreign target of a military strike cannot challenge in court the wisdom of retaliatory military action taken by the United States. Despite their efforts to characterize the case differently, that is just what the plaintiffs have asked us to do. The district court’s dismissal of their claims is affirmed” (p. 27).