someone's hands are tied
Fig. someone is not able to help or intervene. (See also .) I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do. My hands are tied.
hands are tied, my/one's
Not free to act. This metaphor became common after the mid-seventeenth century. An early appearance in print was in clergyman Thomas Fuller’s The Holy State and the Profane State (1642): “When God intends a Nation shall be beaten, He ties their hands behind them.”