The judges of the Supreme Court were divided in decisions on the mandates for vaccines against COVID-19, but the conservative wing prevailed by blocking the policy promoted by the president Joe Biden.
The Biden Administration wanted companies with more employees to order vaccinations or tests for COVID-19 constants to their workers.
Only liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan supported the mandate, but the final decision was based on their colleagues’ doubts that the mandate was too broad
The presidential order should begin to be implemented in February.
The Court did give the green light, however, to another mandate for employees to be vaccinated more of 50,000 health facilities in the country, those that receive federal subsidies from the Medicare or Medicaid programs, and in which some work 15 millions of people.
The setback against Biden had the support of the six judges of the conservative majority on the court of highest level in the US, while the three progressives issued an opinion contrary to the decision.
The argument used by the court to overturn the measure was that the federal government does not have sufficient authority to issue an order of these characteristics , as pointed out by the business groups and the plaintiff states .
“(The mandate) is a significant invasion in the lives and health of a large number of employees”, indicates the opinion.
On Friday of last week, at a court hearing, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Scott Keller of the National Federation of Business s Independents (NFIB, in English), warned that Biden’s order would cause a “massive economic change” in the US and that many “workers are going to resign” so that they are not forced to be vaccinated.
In the case of the mandate that affects health workers, however, two of the conservatives -John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh- allied themselves with the progressives in their endorsement of the Biden measure, while the other four conservatives opposed it.
USA is the country most affected by the pandemic with more than 63 million cases of covid-19 and more of 800.000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
With information from EFE