Chief judge John G. Roberts Jr. defended the independence of the judiciary and denounced any attempt to accuse judges due to disagreements with their statements during rare public comments on Wednesday evening.
“Accusation is not how you don’t even register with a decision,” the supreme judge told a crowd of about 600 people, mainly lawyers and judges, collected in Buffalo, his birth city.
The comments were his first since the issue of a similar, although also unusual, written statement in March in response to threats by President Trump and his allies to accuse federal judges who have made decisions against the policy of the administration.
The chief judge did not mention the president directly in his comments on Wednesday and he did not go further in his answer about threats of accusation, which he gave in response to a direct question during an event to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the American district court for the Western District of New York.
But the comments were nevertheless remarkable, since judges usually prevent them from weighing on political matters. His comments came less than a week after another Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denounce Attacks on the judiciary during comments at a conference for judges in Puerto Rico.
Justice Jackson criticized what she called ‘relentless attacks’ on judges, as well as an environment of intimidation that ‘ultimately runs the risk of undermining our constitution and the rule of law’.
“Throughout the country, judges are confronted with increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retribution only for doing our work,” said Justice Jackson.
Chief Justice Roberts spoke during an hour -long conversation with the American district court judge Lawrence J. Vilardo, an old friend who at one point asked the supreme judge to explain his views on judicial independence.
“It’s central,” replied Chief Justice Roberts. He added that the task of the judiciary was “to decide clearly, but in the course of that to control the excesses of the congress or the executive, and that requires a degree of independence.”
The crowd applauded that.
The public appearance of supreme judge Roberts came at a time of intense On the judges while navigating through a flurry of emergency applications arising from the judicial challenges for Trump’s policy, including matters related to the termination of the citizenship of the birthright, the freezing of more than a billion dollar to foreign aid and the deportation of Venezuelan migrants.
It was also when federal judges throughout the country were confronted with the control of the administration, in particular those who supervise controversial matters that challenge the policy of the administration. Several federal and national judges were in the room on Wednesday evening and listened to the comments of the supreme court.
Mid -March, President Trump cried up to the accusation From a federal judge who had tried to pause the deportations from Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, who called the judge, James E. Boasberg, a “radical left crazy”. Hours later the supreme judge published A rare public statement.
“It has been established for more than two centuries that accusation is not an appropriate answer to a disagreement about a judicial decision,” the supreme judge said then. “The normal professional process by profession exists for that purpose.”
The statement that Mr Trump or Judge Boasberg did not mention repeated two earlier moments when the supreme judge has weighed up about political affairs in recent years.
In 2018 he issued a statement after Mr Trump called a judge who had ruled against the asylum policy of his first government ‘an Obama judge’.
“We have no Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” said Chief Justice Roberts in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated jury members who do the best to do the same to those who appear for them. That independent judiciary is something we must all be grateful for.”
In 2020 he criticized Senator Chuck Schumer from New York, the Democratic leader, for comments he made during a meeting at the Supreme Court, while the judges heard a large abortion case.
“You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price,” Mr Schumer had said, referring to two of Mr Trump, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. “You will not know what will hit you if you continue with these terrible decisions.”
The supreme judge replied in a statement that “threatening statements of these kinds of the highest levels of the government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”
Mr. Fiddling his comments declined The next day, saying that he meant that there would be political consequences.
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