Summary
Eight former inspectors general fired by Trump have sued, arguing their dismissals violated federal laws protecting oversight officials.
The 2022 Securing Inspector General Independence Act requires presidents to give Congress 30 days’ notice and a detailed rationale before firing inspectors general, which Trump allegedly ignored.
The lawsuit seeks to void their removals, asserting the firings were illegal and hindered their duties.
The case is among more than four dozen that have been filed challenging Trump’s actions.
I’ve spent some time reading legal material, and I’d say that most of the legal jargon exists because common English terms aren’t fully-defined. That’s fine for everyday speech, but not when one is talking about whether-or-not something is legal.
So, for example, take mens rea. That’s Latin for “guilty mind”. Could you come up with some kind of common-language equivalent? Yeah, probably. You could maybe say “intent to act wrongly” or something like that. But there is a lot of precisely-defined legal doctrine around mens rea, and using the term makes it immediately clear that you’re talking about that, and not a more-casual meaning.
Generally-speaking, Latin isn’t in vogue these days, isn’t more Latin being added, but there will still be phrases, even though they’re in English, that have that same sort of precise meaning and probably aren’t the phrase one would use if one was just trying to give a high-level overview to someone who isn’t familiar with the doctrine.