Posted by Shyam Moondra
John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, made a critical comment about President Barack Obama's recent State of the Union address given at the joint session of Congress. I thought that was out of line and offensive. Roberts seemed to suggest that the Supreme Court is somehow immune from criticism by the elected officials or the American people. Justices also occasionally make mistakes like all other humans, so there is nothing wrong if President or anyone else for that matter criticizes them for their wrongheaded decisions or poor performance.
Roberts said that Obama's criticism of the court's decision to allow unlimited corporate campaign contributions during elections was an attempt to politicize the independent court. Hello! When Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito always vote as a block, representing the views of conservatives, isn't the Supreme Court already politicized by the very same people who now complain about politicizing the Court? Justices are supposed to decide cases without bias or personal prejudices. How is it then that the court watchers often can predict beforehand how these conservatives (or liberal justices for that matter) would vote on any given controversial issue? When conservative justices banded together to elect Republican George W. Bush as the President vs. Democrat Albert Gore, wasn't that a political decision?
Today, we have a gridlock on the Supreme Court between the conservative and liberal justices. Most cases are decided by a single justice, Justice Kennedy. So why don't we just fire everybody else and let Kennedy decide all the cases that come in front of the Supreme Court. Today's Supreme Court is a sham.
Roberts' criticism of Obama reflects abuse of power bestowed upon the justices by virtue of the fact that they are appointed for life by the President and confirmed by Congress. With lifetime appointments also come a certain sense of arrogance and misconceived belief that the justices are above everybody else, when in fact they are not. In a democratic country, it's the People that are the supreme and not the justices who sit on the Supreme Court.
In recent years, my respect for the Supreme Court has declined largely because of how it functions. The Court increasingly shows lack of objectivity in deciding divisive issues such as abortion, campaign contributions, school prayer, etc. Their decisions are often wrapped in medieval age thought processes that are no longer valid. As time changes, so do customs, views, and temperament. As such, legal decisions should be based on contemporary interpretation of the constitution and not as if it is a standstill constant.
I like to propose a few reforms of this declining institution:
· Lifetime appointments should be abolished. The idea behind lifetime appointments was that they wouldn't have to worry about the politics of re-appointments. However, the fact is that the court is already politicized by the justices themselves, so by appointing them for four-year terms at a time wouldn't take away their independence. On the contrary, it would take away their arrogance and make them more accountable.
· There must be a way to remove justices, who consistently interpret constitution based on their own personal philosophy and make unfair and biased decisions (and that's why we need a term limit for justices).
· The Congress should explore if we could do away with the Supreme Court and replace it with a new more fluid mechanism in which judges are tapped from the federal bench on a case-by-case basis depending on the nature of the case and the expertise required. That way we have constantly changing faces on the high court bench and not have this Scalia-Thomas-Roberts-Alito axis of bias who frequently vote as a block based on their ideology rather than the merit of the case.
For now, Roberts should apologize to President Obama and the American people for his outburst. He may be above the law but he is not above the People.
