Judge Issues Permanent Injunction Against Gov. Cuomo’s Shul Restrictions

By Yehudit Garmaise

  Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been permanently disallowed from issuing any restrictions on capacity limits at houses of worship in New York State.

   Just moments ago, New York District Court Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto issued a permanent injunction that bars all Cuomo’s Executive Orders on Houses of Worship: restrictions that the governor tried to extend five times.

    The District Court’s permanent injunction brings Gov. Cuomo’s nefarious restrictions that disallowed religious gatherings, while allowing secular ones, to a definitive end.

   “The Courts have now enjoined all of the restrictions on houses of worship that Governor Cuomo imposed in his Executive Order,” said Mr. Avi Schick, Agudah Israel's lead attorney, told Yeshiva World News. “There was no basis to treat shuls and davening more harshly than conduct such as office work and shopping.

    “We are grateful that religious practice has been restored to its rightful place as the most essential of all activities.”

   Mr. Schick, of the Troutman Sanders law firm, and his team have been working without rest since chol hamoed Sukkos when the governor first called Boro Park a red zone and set 10-person limits in the neighborhood’s shuls.

  The legal team of Agudath Israel’s first victory came late at night on Nov. 26, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an injunction that disallowed Gov. Cuomo’s 10 person/25% maximum capacity limitations in houses of worship, which he issued in an executive order on Oct. 6, when he created his zoned microclusters to stop the spread of COVID-19.

    In that precedent-setting decision in which Agudath Israel joined forces with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn to sue the governor, the U.S. Supreme Court then ruled for religious freedoms when it held that the 10- and 25-person limits in red and orange zones, “were likely not ‘neutral’ or ‘generally applicable’ because ‘essential’ businesses and certain ‘non-essential’ businesses [such as liquor and bicycle stores] were not subject to the same restrictions, and that the fixed person capacity limits must satisfy ‘strict scrutiny.’” 

   On Dec. 18, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard the appeal by Agudath Israel, whose lawyers wrote, “The [25% and 33% maximum] restrictions have eliminated the ability of many Jews to worship on important religious holy days. None of this is necessary to protect public health.” 

   The court found that Gov. Cuomo’s order was not neutral towards religion, and in fact, impermissibly “devalues religious reasons” for congregating “by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons.”

     A month later, on Dec. 28, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that declared Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that restricted maximum attendance at houses of worship to “discriminate against religion on its face.”