zlacker

This is not true. Only their interpretation of the Constitution cannot be overridden by legislation (requires a constitutional amendment). Here, where the Court is interpreting a federal statue, namely 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Congress could in fact change the law to make it clear that the qualified immunity defense the Court made up does not apply.

>>cataph+(OP)
This doesn't appear necessarily correct to me. The statute provides the basis for a suit based on deprivation of rights. SCOTUS determined that (potentially independently of any language in the statute) QI exists for various classes of government officials.

Now, if SCOTUS's QI theory is based on the text of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 then certainly the legislature could change/update/replace the statute with something worded differently.

But it isn't clear that their decision is based on that (or any other) statute at all. Some interpretations of Harlow vs Fitzgerald seem to point more to the idea that SCOTUS decided that this immunity was derived from other aspects of the totality of the constitution, USC and precedent. Others see it more the way you suggest, which is that SCOTUS concluded that QI existed based on specific statutory language.

Apparently, we don't have to wait that long to find out, since they will be reconsidering it starting tomorrow.

>>cataph+(OP)
Rep. Justin Amash, at least, appears to agree with you (and has proposed an act to make it clear that QI is not a defense). So for now, pending further SCOTUS decisions, I concede that I'm wrong, and that it would be possible to change this via legislation. I apologize for any confusion.