WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration must temporarily halt efforts to implement a February 26 executive order that directed government agencies to develop reorganization plans and to prepare for large-scale staffing cuts, a federal judge said on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco sided with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments, and blocked large-scale mass layoffs known as “reductions in force” for 14 days.
“Federal courts should not micromanage the vast federal workforce, but courts must sometimes act to preserve the proper checks and balances between the three branches of government,” wrote Illston.
“As a group of conservative former government officials and advisors have written to the court, ‘Unchecked presidential power is not what the Framers had in mind’.”
(Reporting by Tom Hals and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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