Government officials are mostly protected from civil liability when faced with statutory and constitutional claims, according to a doctrine called qualified immunity. Ordinary individuals, regardless of their ranks in society, are expected to follow the law strictly. They can be sued and fined if they violate another person’s legal rights. But under the qualified immunity doctrine, federal officials are placed to lower standards when it comes to making the face charges for their violations (Bernick, 2018). They will only be accountable in the situations when they violate established rights according to the current case law; a policy that protects government officers against massive abuses. Although government officials enjoy qualified immunity which protects them from being held accountable, this policy should be abolished because it infringes on the rights of other citizens.
Qualified immunity has become one of the common ways federal officials, especially law enforcers, escape accountability for their misconducts, including the proven ones. Under qualified immunity, government officials and law enforcement are permitted to apply virtual impunity to violate others’ constitutional rights, and this should be revisited to scrap it. Police shootings are on the rise because officers are not held accountable by the criminal legal system (Schweikert, 2020). This is because the prosecutors fail to press charges; grand juries cannot indict or convict. These problems can only be fixed if the qualified immunity doctrine is withdrawn.
Qualified immunity bars citizens from holding police officers when they brutally use excessive force in their law enforcement. Abuses of authority incidents occur every day because of the low standards which have been set by the doctrine of qualified immunity (Schweikert, 2020). Apart from just depressing an individual’s chance for victory in a lawsuit for civil rights, it also means the claims will never be tabled to the court in the first place. It tends to freeze the constitution, where a victim must prove that law enforcement went against a entitled right to beat a qualified immunity defense.
Qualified immunity is unfair and should be scrapped to ensure it does not interfere with the accountability of federal employees once faced with civil suits. Besides, it works contrary to the intentions of Section 1983, which allows individuals to sue federal officers, and lowers the main principles of the constitution. Therefore, qualified immunity needs to be abolished to guarantee accountability of government officials when faced with liability or misconduct.
References
Bernick, E. (2018). It’s time to limit qualified immunity. Georgetown Law. Web.
Schweikert, J. (2020). Yes, abolishing qualified immunity will likely alter police behavior. Cato Institute. Web.