The US Supreme Court has today handed down a crucial verdict, limiting the power of lower-court judges to issue “universal injunctions” to block the enforcement of policies nationwide.

There were two issues at stake in Trump v. CASA, and the Supreme Court decided one of them. While it avoided resolution of the main, hot-button topic — whether the Fourteenth Amendment confers birthright citizenship on the American-born children of illegal immigrants — it did decide the procedural issue that brought the case to the high court in the first place. District courts cannot issue injunctions which apply to the entire country, rather than merely to the parties before them.

In holding that they cannot do so, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the other five justices in the majority reversed a troubling and anti-democratic trend that has been hamstringing all executive actions with increasing frequency since the turn of the century. Every executive action or law now faces some challenge in federal district courts as to its constitutionality. Fair enough: that’s a court’s job. But the remedy these judges impose — putting a government policy on hold for the nation as a whole, not just for the parties concerned — is a new and radical departure from how courts are supposed to work.

It used to be rare — until the Sixties it never happened at all — but it is now relatively common. It happened a dozen times to Barack Obama’s executive actions, 14 times to Joe Biden’s, and 64 times to Donald Trump’s in his first term alone, with 25 more in his second term after just six months.

Both parties’ lawyers and activists have abused this new loophole, though one side more frequently than the other, using it to delay the implementation of any policy they oppose. This then extends the process for years, until it reaches the Supreme Court. It is one of the leading causes of America’s national sclerosis, a painfully slow and extra-constitutional impediment to the elected branches’ ability to effect change. And that slowness contributes to voters’ loss of faith in government: the people vote for change, but the lawsuits drag out its implementation for so long that nothing happens. This process strikes hard at the idea of government by the people.

Today, that impediment has been removed. “These injunctions,” Barrett wrote, “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.” Congress never granted the lower courts a power to issue sweeping rulings, only to resolve cases in law and equity concerning the parties before them. “The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history. Its absence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority,” Barrett added.

Following today’s ruling, Trump referred to district judges as “a grave threat to democracy”. The outcome is a victory for him, but it would have been a victory for Biden had the opinion been issued four years ago. It is also a win for Congress, in a way, since legislation it passes is often subject to the same constitutional challenges. It is a win for the elected branches and a limitation on the unelected judiciary. In short, it is a good day for American democracy.