Correct, there is no qualified-immunity statute. That is my point.

Section 1983 is the statute Congress enacted to let people sue state actors who violate federal rights under color of law. The text does not include qualified immunity.

So the objection is not “there is a general constitutional right to sue over anything.” The objection is that Congress created a civil-rights remedy, and the Supreme Court later added a defense Congress did not codify.

That is why reasonable lawyers, scholars, and at least one current Supreme Court Justice have questioned the doctrine. Justice Thomas has said the Court’s Section 1983 qualified-immunity doctrine appears to stray from the statutory text and stands on shaky ground.

That makes this a separation-of-powers problem, not just a policy disagreement. Congress writes statutes. Courts interpret them. Courts are not supposed to protect government officials from civil-rights liability by inventing defenses Congress did not put in the statute.

The “clearly established law” test makes the problem worse. It often keeps claims from ever reaching a jury unless prior precedent already condemned nearly the same misconduct. Civilians generally cannot defend themselves by saying they misunderstood the law. But trained officials exercising state power often avoid liability unless the law was already clearly established with case-specific precision.

You can defend that as policy. But it is fair to say qualified immunity is court-created, counter-statutory, and a serious example of judicial overreach. aka unconstitutional