One can criticise the courts all one likes, but very often it is they who shape the nature and extent of life in the country. Perhaps their influence is too far-reaching, but ignored it can't be.
It is with those thoughts in mind that the NY Times editorialises on the US Supreme Court decisions in the term just concluded. It doesn't make for happy reading when one reflects on how the appointees to the Court have come down with a raft of decisions, which in the main, are troubling in how they will impact across the US:
"In some ways, the Supreme Court term that just ended seems muddled: disturbing, highly conservative rulings on subjects like voting rights and gun control, along with important defenses of basic liberties in other areas, including the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The key to understanding the term lies in the fragility of the court’s center. Some of the most important decisions came on 5-to-4 votes — a stark reminder that the court is just one justice away from solidifying a far-right majority that would do great damage to the Constitution and the rights of ordinary Americans.
The Supreme Court abandoned its special role in protecting voting rights when it rejected a challenge to Indiana’s harshly anti-democratic voter ID law. Critics warned that the law, which bars anyone without a government-issued photo ID from voting, would disenfranchise poor people, minorities and the elderly, all of whom disproportionately lack drivers’ licenses. The critics were right. In the Indiana presidential primary, shortly after the ruling, about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were turned away at the polls for not having acceptable ID."
Read on here.
It is with those thoughts in mind that the NY Times editorialises on the US Supreme Court decisions in the term just concluded. It doesn't make for happy reading when one reflects on how the appointees to the Court have come down with a raft of decisions, which in the main, are troubling in how they will impact across the US:
"In some ways, the Supreme Court term that just ended seems muddled: disturbing, highly conservative rulings on subjects like voting rights and gun control, along with important defenses of basic liberties in other areas, including the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The key to understanding the term lies in the fragility of the court’s center. Some of the most important decisions came on 5-to-4 votes — a stark reminder that the court is just one justice away from solidifying a far-right majority that would do great damage to the Constitution and the rights of ordinary Americans.
The Supreme Court abandoned its special role in protecting voting rights when it rejected a challenge to Indiana’s harshly anti-democratic voter ID law. Critics warned that the law, which bars anyone without a government-issued photo ID from voting, would disenfranchise poor people, minorities and the elderly, all of whom disproportionately lack drivers’ licenses. The critics were right. In the Indiana presidential primary, shortly after the ruling, about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were turned away at the polls for not having acceptable ID."
Read on here.
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