Wiener Case

The Wiener Case (Removal Power, Executive Establishment and Treaties)

Curtailment of the President's power of removal, so liberally delineated in the Myers decision, was not to end with the Humphrey case. Unresolved by the latter was the question whether the President, absent a provision expressly delimiting his authority in the statute creating an agency endowed with quasijudicial functions, remained competent to remove members serving thereon. To this query the Court supplied a negative answer in Wiener v. United States.1 Emphasizing that the duties of the War Claims Commission were wholly adjudicatory and its determinations, final and exempt from review by any other official or judicial body, the Court unanimously concluded that inasmuch as the President was unable to supervise its activities, he lacked the power, independently of statutory authorization, to remove a commissioner whose term expired with the life of that agency.

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References

This text about Wiener Case is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Notes

[Footnote 1] 357 U.S. 349 (1958).