Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 18
ABC News: On the eve of a new year and a second Trump presidency, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stark warning to the incoming administration, members of Congress and the public about threats to the nation’s independent judicial system and the rule of law.
“Within the past few years, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected,” Roberts wrote in his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary.
“Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system — sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics,” Roberts said. “Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed, and the Nation has avoided the standoffs that plagued the 1950s and 1960s.”
The message publicly highlights what has been a growing private concern among the justices: that an intensifying storm of partisan rhetoric, attacks on the court’s credibility by outside groups and public dissatisfaction with some recent high-profile decisions may empower open defiance of the Supreme Court’s authority.
There has also been deep unease about persistent protests outside justices’ homes and threats of violence, which have resulted in around-the-clock security measures.
President-elect Donald Trump has harshly attacked the court for unfavorable decisions over the past eight years, with some allies suggesting certain rulings could be ignored.
Roberts, the President George W. Bush appointee who is in his 20th year as chief justice, said he welcomes criticism of the court from all corners of society and that criticism alone is not a threat to judicial independence.
