Courts Diverge on California Law to Silence Doctors Regarding Coronavirus

In the fall, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law legislation giving medical boards in the state the power to punish — including via revoking state medical licenses — doctors for challenging the orthodoxy regarding coronavirus.

This new law was quickly responded to with lawsuits challenging it.

Judges considering two of those lawsuits, in two different federal district courts in California, have decided whether to grant temporary injunctions against enforcement of the law while the challenges in the courts proceed. And the two judges decided differently on the matter. On December 28, the judge in a Central District of California case rejected ordering a preliminary injunction. Then, this week, the judge in an Eastern District of California case granted a preliminary injunction.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley provides an informative discussion of the two judges’ opinions in a Thursday article at his website. You can read his article here. The opinions of the district court judges, Turley writes, “now present an excellent foundation for a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and possibly the Supreme Court.”

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

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