Washington, DC, Nov. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed an amicus curiae brief today in Sligo Creek Center v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at the U.S. Supreme Court. NCLA asks the Justices to find that Congress unconstitutionally gave HHS judicial power to adjudicate Medicare and Medicaid regulatory enforcement cases against Americans and their businesses. The Supreme Court should rule that regulatory enforcement targets must have their cases heard in an Article III court, and overturn its 1977 Atlas Roofing v. OSHRC decision’s application of the fatally flawed “public rights” exception to this vital constitutional principle.

Article III of the Constitution vests judicial power exclusively in Article III courts. Congress does not possess judicial power, so it cannot relocate or “delegate” that power to HHS or anywhere else outside of the Judicial Branch. The Supreme Court held in Atlas Roofing that Congress did not violate Americans’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in an Article III court by giving an agency the power to adjudicate cases involving “public rights,” including punitive law-enforcement proceedings supposedly prosecuted in the public interest. That much-criticized holding is just wrong—and should be overturned. In the decades since, the Court has not even explained what a “public right” is, nor could it. The government does not have “rights” when it interacts with people, only powers given to it by the Constitution.

In its 2024 SEC v. Jarkesy decision, which NCLA supported, the Court held that the “public rights” exception to Article III court jurisdiction “has no textual basis in the Constitution.” NCLA asks the Court to dispense with the “public rights” exception and affirm that judicial power is exclusively assigned by our founding document to courts, not prosecutors.

NCLA released the following statements:

“The founders recognized that the combination of prosecutorial and judicial powers in a single agency is the very definition of tyranny. It is long past time to restore judicial power exclusively to the courts to protect both the civil liberties of Americans and the fair, equal and impartial administration of justice.”

— Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

““Most people understand that one should not give away something that belongs to another. But in this regime, the legislature has chosen to grant judicial power to HHS, an executive agency. The Supreme Court should grant cert and make clear that Congress has no business delegating power that is not its own.”

— Caitlin M. Moyna, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the amicus page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights. 


Joe Martyak
New Civil Liberties Alliance
703-403-1111
joe.martyak@ncla.legal

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