But, in the years that followed, Sarbanes-Oxley proved largely ineffective, not least because judges appointed to key administrative positions by President George W. Bush interpreted it narrowly, dismissing hundreds of cases on minor technicalities and ruling against the overwhelming majority of employees who submitted grievances.
Only days before Mr Morsi's inauguration, the most senior constitutional court infuriated the Brotherhood by ruling, on a technicality, to disband the parliament itself.
The case was dismissed due to a technicality in March 2007 but without a ruling.
EFF executive director Cindy Cohn said that the NSA's refusal to authenticate the leaked documents "is just another step in its practice of falling back on weak technicalities to prevent the public courts from ruling on whether our Constitution allows this kind of mass surveillance of hundreds of millions of nonsuspect people".
The panel can chose to approve or reject the closure, but it's largely a technicality because the ruling is only advisory.
Because they understand the watershed moment the outcome will provoke, the justices dig through the details and come up with a technicality to produce a ruling that will change everything and nothing.
Though the Crown has attempted to have the Beaver Lake case thrown out of court on numerous technicalities, other court rulings have affirmed its validity and secured the First Nation a trial, though no date has yet been set.
A Peruvian court ordered her to return to prison in August, basing its ruling on a technicality (the police had apparently failed to inspect her apartment).
The county admitted no wrongdoing, attributed the judge's ruling to a technicality and argued that since it had previously invested in affordable housing, "what is different is the locations where the housing must be built".
The Labour rebel John McDonnell said the court of appeal ruling was not a technicality.
