By Andrew Chung
HERSHEY, Pennsylvania, May 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts expressed concern on Wednesday about the public perception of the Supreme Court as an institution driven primarily by political outcomes rather than the law at a time when some prominent voices have raised questions about the top U.S. judicial body’s legitimacy.
Roberts, who has led the court since 2005, appeared to acknowledge dimming public approval of the court, shown in opinion polls over the past few years, as its conservative majority continues to push American law dramatically rightward.
“At a very basic level people think we’re making policy decisions,” Roberts told an audience of judges, attorneys and law students in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do,” Roberts said.
Roberts, appointed as chief justice by Republican former President George W. Bush, is seen as deeply conservative but also concerned about the court’s institutional credibility and public perception.
Its current 6-3 conservative majority was established in 2020 when Republican President Donald Trump made a third appointment of a justice to a lifetime position on the bench. Since then, it has delivered landmark rulings rolling back abortion rights and race-conscious affirmative action practices, expanding gun rights, expanding religious rights, limiting transgender rights and restricting federal regulatory power.
In another landmark ruling last week, it gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under this civil rights law. The ruling was a victory for Louisiana Republicans and Trump’s administration.
A ruling authored by Roberts in 2024 granted Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, bolstering his bid to regain the presidency by effectively delaying a trial that ultimately never took place.
Since Trump returned to the presidency last year, the court has repeatedly taken emergency actions to let his far-reaching executive actions take effect pending legal challenges. In one setback for Trump, the court in another ruling authored by Roberts in February struck down Trump’s signature global tariffs issued under a law meant for use in national emergencies.
Interviewed on stage by a federal judge on Wednesday, Roberts was asked how the court is misunderstood. Roberts said that the justices are “not simply part of the political process,” adding: “I’m not sure the people grasp that as much as is appropriate.”
KAGAN’S CONCERNS
In 2022, Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal members, said its legitimacy could be imperiled if Americans come to view the justices as trying to impose personal preferences on society. Kagan said that a “court is legitimate when it’s acting like a court,” by respecting past precedents and not asserting authority to make political or policy decisions.
“When courts become extensions of the political process, when people see them as extensions of the political process, once people see them as trying just to impose personal preferences on a society, irrespective of the law, that’s when there’s a problem,” Kagan said.
Biden, whose administration was on the losing side of some key Supreme Court rulings, in 2024 proposed sweeping changes for the court including term limits of 18 years for the justices and a binding code of conduct.
“We need these reforms to restore trust in the court,” Biden said, adding that it “has been weaponized by those seeking to carry out an extreme agenda for decades to come.”
Amid Republican opposition, Biden’s proposals went nowhere in Congress.
Other Democrats and some legal scholars have indicated similar concerns. Referring to the conservative justices, Senator Edward Markey in 2024 criticized the “illegitimate, extremist U.S. Supreme Court majority.”
PERSONAL ATTACKS
Roberts on Wednesday repeated his concerns about personal attacks and hostility toward judges. Criticism of rulings is legitimate, Roberts said, but criticism of the judges themselves is not.
“As soon as that happens, that’s not appropriate and it can lead to very serious problems,” Roberts said.
Roberts did not name Trump, who has launched verbal attacks on the judiciary after rulings impeding his agenda.
The Supreme Court repeatedly has been called upon to rule in cases involving Trump’s expansive view of presidential powers. It is expected by the end of June to rule in more major cases involving Trump including his efforts to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and restrict birthright citizenship.
Trump condemned Roberts and the five other justices who ruled against him on tariffs and made an unsubstantiated claim that the court was swayed by foreign interests. Trump called out two of the three conservative justices he appointed during his first term in office, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, calling the decision “an embarrassment to their families.”
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
Comments