{"id":28140,"date":"2024-07-30T06:59:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T10:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28140"},"modified":"2024-07-30T06:59:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T10:59:52","slug":"biden-criticises-extreme-supreme-court-in-push-for-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/07\/30\/biden-criticises-extreme-supreme-court-in-push-for-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden criticises ‘extreme’ Supreme Court in push for reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Joe Biden has criticised the “extreme opinions” of the Supreme court as he proposed sweeping reforms including the removal of life appointments.<\/b><\/p>\n

The proposals come after the current conservative-dominated court issued a series of major decisions, including upending the constitutional right to abortion and allowing presidents wide-ranging immunity from prosecution for “official acts”.<\/p>\n

Mr Biden has proposed an 18-year term for justices and an enforcable ethics code “to restore trust and accountability”.<\/p>\n

He however faces a difficult task to gain Congressional approval given Republican control of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Democrats hope that pushing for reform can help galvanise voters before November’s election.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it has been dogged by allegations of judicial ethics violations, particularly after journalists investigated Justice Clarence Thomas for not reporting gift.<\/p>\n

The court’s nine justices serve for life under current rules, and new appointments are made by the sitting president when a member retires or dies. Donald Trump appointed three justices in his four years in office.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Biden slams ‘extreme opinions’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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In a speech on Monday in Austin, Texas, Mr Biden said that the “extreme opinions” handed down by the court “have undermined law and established civil rights principles and protections”.<\/p>\n

The president added that the court was “mired in a crisis of ethics”, citing conflicts of interests among justices.<\/p>\n

“I’m certain we need these reforms to restore trust in the court, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy,” he said.<\/p>\n

The speech marked the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n

In an article published earlier in the day in the Washington Post, Mr Biden said that “what is happening now is not normal”.<\/p>\n

“It undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,”\u00a0he wrote<\/a>. “We now stand in a breach.”<\/p>\n

Mr Biden has proposed a new justice is appointed to the court every two years, who would then serve for 18 years. Reform advocates have previously suggested that such a staggered system would help depoliticise the court.<\/p>\n

The president also want Congress to establish a new code of ethics that would force justices to disclose gifts and avoid overt political activities.<\/p>\n

While the court released a code of ethics for the first time in its history last year, the it has no enforcement mechanism.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Mr Biden hopes to pass an amendment to the US constitution that would reverse a 1 July ruling in which the Supreme Court said that Donald Trump and other former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution.<\/p>\n

In the controversial ruling, the court’s justices found that a president has immunity for “official acts” but is not immune from “unofficial acts”.<\/p>\n

In his article, Mr Biden said that the proposed amendment – which he has dubbed “No One is Above the Law” – would “make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office”.<\/p>\n

“I share our founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute,” he wrote. “We are a nation of laws – not of kings or dictators”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reforms ‘DOA’ says top Republican<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Republicans have pushed back on efforts to reform the court.<\/p>\n

In a Monday statement, the Trump campaign accused President Biden and vice president – and presumptive Democratic nominee – Kamala Harris of working to “undermine the legitimacy” of the court.<\/p>\n

“It’s all part of Kamala’s scheme to pack the Supreme Court with far-left, radical judges who will render decisions based on politics, now the law,” the Trump statement said.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that Democrats made no effort to do so when a more liberal-leaning group of justices were “pumping out opinions they liked.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Trump also described efforts to reform the court as an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” attack on the “sacred” institution.<\/p>\n

“The Democrats are attempting to interfere in our presidential election, and destroy our justice system, by attacking their political opponent, me, and our honourable supreme court,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

“We have to fight for our fair and independent courts, and protect our country.”<\/p>\n

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal “dead on arrival” in the House. In reply, Mr Biden said Mr Johnson’s “thinking is dead on arrival”.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans also denounced Mr Biden’s proposals, with Ted Cruz of Texas saying they were “an assault on the legitimacy of the court”.<\/p>\n

Josh Hawley, of Missouri, said they were a “wholesale attack on the court” which would “gut the institution”.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said that the reform plan put the future of the Supreme Court “on the ballot” in the November presidential election.<\/p>\n

Professor Daniel Urman, who teaches law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston, described the proposal as “too little, too late”.<\/p>\n

“Rarely do lame duck presidents secure major legislative victories, and, even if so, Republicans, who are happy with the current Supreme Court, control the House,” Prof Urman told the BBC.<\/p>\n

“The interesting question is what [Vice President] Harris will do on this issue during the campaign,” he added. “Court reform is pretty popular, especially term limits.”<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Biden has criticised the “extreme opinions” of the Supreme court as he proposed sweeping reforms including the removal of life appointments. The proposals come after the current conservative-dominated court issued a series of major […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[8339,6609,1310],"class_list":{"0":"post-28140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-civil-rights-act","10":"tag-joe-biden","11":"tag-us-supreme-court","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28141,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28140\/revisions\/28141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}