
A file image of the US President Donald Trump strongly condemned the shooting that killed two Israeli Embassy (Photo: IANS)
Supposedly, because it so heavily insists upon the rule of law, the American system of democracy is one of the most ideal in the world. It needed a maverick politician-President like Donald Trump to expose the patent flaw in the system, which prevents the separation of power between the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches. The fly in the ointment is the peculiar manner in which the American Supreme Court is constituted and the enormous judicial power vested in a group of nine Justices who can decide on the fate of millions.
Since 1869, the court consists of nine Justices who have lifetime tenure, meaning they remain on the court until they die, retire, resign, or are impeached and removed from office.
Thus, fresh appointments are literally subjected to the luck of the draw, depending on when any of the judges require to be replaced! Trump had been fortunate during his first term in having as many as three vacancies, which he replaced with conservative Justices, thereby making the present Supreme Court, by a 6-3 margin, the most conservative in the US’s history. The inevitable has happened now – the apex court has imposed restrictions on a lower court’s ability to block presidential orders, thereby handing Trump what he dubbed as a “giant win,” and dealing a near-effort fatal blow to the endeavour by stakeholders to block many of the new President’s controversial orders.
The case immediately under the spotlight is whether Trump’s attempt to use an Executive order to end birthright citizenship for non-citizens and undocumented migrants is allowed. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court’s conservative Justices sided with Trump and said they were not only addressing his attempt to end birthright citizenship, but were also addressing presidential powers broadly.
It may be recalled that rights groups and 22 States had sued the Trump administration over an Executive order the President signed on his first day in office aimed at ending birthright citizenship, which gives people born on US territory automatic citizenship rights. The lawsuits were aimed at blocking the order from taking effect and temporarily did just that.
Last Friday, in a landmark ruling, the apex court introduced limits on how universal injunctions were issued by federal courts, thereby fundamentally resetting the relationship between the federal courts and the Executive branch in favour of the latter. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling will mean that universal injunctions “will no longer be the default remedy in challenges to Executive action,” lower federal courts will not be able to support numerous other judicial challenges by liberal elements in the US. Considering that Trump’s order banning birthright citizenship stood in contradiction to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, the ruling simultaneously implies presidential authority to override the US Constitution, a flaw visible even to uninformed eyes!