Litigation

Legal Scholars Call for Supreme Court Reforms

By Deanna Dawson

As reported in today’s Washington Post, a group of legal scholars have penned a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, and the chairs andranking minority members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, urging a series of reforms to the United States Supreme Court.

The letter claims that “excessive judicial independence” has eroded public confidence in the judiciary:

“The increasing likeness of high courts to robed legislatures has, we believe, contributed to the growing unrest of citizens with the tradition and practice of judicial independence, an unrest to which Justices themselves point with concern.  Congress and the Department of Justice should therefore attend to their duty to provide constructive ?checks and balances? to our highest Court to reassure the public that its great judicial power is being exercised with appropriate self-restraint and fidelity to law.”

Many of the proposals  contained in the letter are similar to reforms discussed in the October 2008 issue of the ABA Journal and elsewhere. The new twist is that the proponents are urging congress to undertake a review of the laws relating to the Supreme Court (”a subject it appears not to have seriously considered for at least seventy years”), and to enact a Judiciary Act for 2009. The letter contains specific suggestions for statutory text on four topics.

The first and most sweeping proposal, entitled “Regular Appointments to the Supreme Court,” suggests that new appointments should be made to the Supreme Court biennially “to assure timely rotation within the membership of the Court.” The ostensible goal of this proposal is to ensure that decisions of the Court “reflect the moral and political values of the contemporary citizens they govern.” (more…)

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 23, 2009 (boomark / email).