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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a warning Tuesday that the United States must maintain “judicial independence” just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Roberts outlined his concerns in his annual report on the federal judiciary.
“It’s not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy. Most cases have a winner and a loser. Every Administration suffers defeats in the judicial system, sometimes in cases with major ramifications for the executive branch or the legislature or other issues consequential”. Robert wrote in the 15-page report. “However, over the past few decades, the decisions of the courts have been followed, popular or not, and the Nation has avoided the confrontations that reached the 1950s and 1960s.”
“Over the past few years, however, elected officials across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open ignorance of federal court decisions,” Roberts said, without naming Trump, President Biden or any specific lawmakers. “Such dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be firmly rejected. Judicial independence is worth preserving. As my late colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, an independent judiciary is “essential to the “rule of law in any country”, but “it is vulnerable”. to assault can be broken if the law of society exists to serve it is not responsible for ensuring its preservation”.
“I urge all Americans to appreciate this legacy of our founding generation and cherish their resilience,” Roberts said.
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Roberts also quoted President Charles Evans Hughes, who remarked that the three branches of government “must work in successful cooperation” to “make possible the effective operation of the department of government which is designed to safeguard with impartiality and independence judicial the interests of freedom”. .”
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor stand on the House floor before President Biden’s annual State of the Union address before a joint session on 7 March 2024. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
“Our political system and economic strength depend on the rule of law,” Roberts wrote.
An emblematic Supreme Court immunity decision Roberts’ write-in, along with another high court decision that halted efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, were touted as major victories for the Republican nominee on his way to winning the election. The immunity decision was criticized by Democrats like Biden, who later called for term limits and an enforceable ethics code after criticism of undisclosed travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some judges.
A handful of Democrats and one Republican lawmaker urged Biden to ignore a Trump-appointed judge’s decision to overturn the FDA’s approval of abortion. drug mifepristone last year Biden refused to take executive action to override the ruling, and the Supreme Court later granted the White House a stay that allowed sales of the drug to continue.
The Supreme Court meets in Washington, DC on February 5, 2024. (MANDEL I/AFP via Getty Images)
The high court’s conservative majority also ruled last year that Biden’s massive student loan debt forgiveness efforts constitute an illegal use of executive power.
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Roberts and Trump clashed in 2018 when the chief justice berated the president for denouncing a judge who rejected his migrant asylum policy as an “Obama judge.”
In 2020, Roberts criticized the Senate Democratic leader’s comments Chuck Schumer of New York while the Supreme Court considered a high-profile abortion case.
Roberts presented his letter on Tuesday telling a story about King George III stripping colonial judges of life appointments, an order that was “not well received”. Trump is now preparing for a second term as president with an ambitious conservative agenda, elements of which are likely to be legally challenged and end up before the court whose conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump during his first term. mandate
In the annual report, the chief justice wrote generally that even if court decisions are unpopular or mark a defeat for a presidential administration, other branches of government must be willing to enforce them to guarantee the rule of law. Roberts pointed to the Brown v. Board of Education that downgraded the schools in 1954 as needing federal enforcement over resistance from southern governors.
Chief Justice John Roberts, left, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito are seated as they and other members of the Supreme Court sit for a group photo in the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill on Friday, October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
He also said that “attempts to intimidate judges over their decisions in cases are inappropriate and should be strongly opposed.”
While public officials and others have the right to criticize the rulings, they should also be aware that their statements may “provoke dangerous reactions from others,” Roberts wrote.
Threats against federal judges have more than tripled in the past decade, according to statistics from the United States Marshals Service. State court judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were murdered in their homes in 2022 and 2023, Roberts wrote.
“Violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges for their work undermines our Republic and is totally unacceptable,” he wrote.
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Roberts also pointed to misinformation about court rulings as a threat to the independence of judges, saying social media can increase distortions and even be exploited by “hostile foreign state actors” to exacerbate divisions.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
