I was shocked by the reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade case in 2022 by a conservative-led Supreme Court. This monumental Supreme Court decision served as a wake-up call for most Americans who seemed to have finally realized the significant impact that potential Supreme Court decisions can have on their lives (Tanne, 2022). Thousands (myself included) came out in large numbers to protest against this decision and calling for Supreme Court reforms on numerous fronts. Considering the significant impact that potential Supreme Court decisions have on the day-to-day lives of Americans, there is need to make it more answerable to the people. Hence, the need for the following reforms to the selection of members of the bench of the US Supreme Court.
First, I would introduce an eight-year term limit and institute certain qualifications such as age, education and profession to depoliticize the US Supreme Court. As it stands now, justices appointed to the Supreme Court serve for life, in addition, the US constitution does not stipulate any specific qualifications required for appointment to the bench. These loopholes give the party in power the latitude to play political games that in most instances are not in the interest of the American people (Glick, 2023). The justification for allowing appointed justices to serve for life on the bench is mainly to enhance judiciary independence and protect justices from partisan political pressures. However, according to Glick, this provision is fundamentally undemocratic and undermines accountability as it does not reflect the reality of electoral outcomes and encourages judicial arrogance since there no provision for direct judicial accountability. Thus, introducing an eight-year time limit would not only underline the realities of electoral outcomes but also provide a window for judicial accountability.
In addition, I would introduce the following requirements for qualification for a seat at the Supreme Court. First, set the age for retirement at 60 years to keep up with generational needs. This provision may also stop appointing-authorities’ practice of appointing younger judges to the Supreme Court as a means of their parties’ dominating the Supreme court bench for long. Secondly, I would require that a potential appointee to the bench be a practicing judge with not less than 25-years of experience at a lower court. This provision is likely to give insight to the senate about the potential judge’s judicial history during the approval process. In my opinion, just like other professions such as medicine require certain educational backgrounds and working experience, appointment to the US Supreme Court (the highest court in the land) should be based on merit.
However, it must be noted that a merit based appointment procedure for members of the US Supreme Court is more likely to disadvantage minority groups. According to Thorp (2022), poverty, historical injustices among other social problems have historically disenfranchised minority groups from attaining the highest qualifications in their fields to the extent that using a merit-based criterion for filling up appointive positions can potentially disadvantage members of these groups. In such cases, affirmative action in selection can be applied to enable minority groups who are disadvantaged by the above mentioned reforms to benefit. In any case, the merit principle can also be applied to the affirmative action provision by introducing the concept of suitably qualified persons from the designated groups (Thorp, 2022).
Also, as a means of ensuring equal representation of all Americans at the Supreme Court bench and depoliticizing the bench, I propose that Congress increase the number of Supreme Court seats to fifteen and automatically designate five seats to the liberals, five seats to the conservatives and five seats to the moderates. As it currently stands, the US judicial system allows for an en banc bench consisting of fifteen justices in cases of significant decisions to be made (Larsen & Devins, 2022), thus, it is not far-fetched to allow a Supreme Court bench constituted of fifteen justices. In addition, dictating the partisan composition of the bench to be divided equally among the liberals, conservatives and moderates is acceptance of the US partisan political realities. In every issue in the US, public opinion is often divided in terms of the liberals, conservatives and moderates. This then justifies the need for all these voices to be given equal voting rights at the highest court in the land.
Opponents of the above proposal to increase the constitution of the Supreme Court bench to fifteen from the current nine argue that this phenomenon known commonly as ‘court packing’ undermines judicial autonomy and tramples on democratic norms (Larsen & Devins, 2022). However, it is inarguable that the US populous is a multi-cultural society; hence the need to fill the bench with members from diverse backgrounds to accommodate this cultural reality. Considering the en banc bench precedence set by the federal court of Appeals in the US, a Supreme Court bench constituted of fifteen individuals is a fair number. Besides, designating the composition of the bench in the above mentioned ratio assuades the fears of the Supreme Court being used to fight political battles by the appointing authority. In addition, increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to fifteen is more likely to help in addressing the perennial problem of excessive workload (Glick, 2023); thus serving the principal interest of the search for justice.
In a nutshell, if the above proposals is implemented, the US Supreme Court can be more answerable to the people. In this way, helping advance the interest of justice and democracy in the US.
References
Glick, D. (2023). Is the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Vulnerable to Intense Appointment Politics? Democrats’ Changed Views Around Justice Ginsburg’s Death. Journal of Law and Courts, 1-12.
Larsen, A. O., & Devins, N. (2022). Circuit personalities. Va. L. Rev., 108, 1315.
Rosenberg, G. N. (2022). The Triumph of Politics: The Republican Party’s Takeover of the US Supreme Court. National Law School Journal, 16(1), 7.
Tanne, J. H. (2022). US Supreme Court ends constitutional right to abortion. bmj, 377.
Thorp, H. H. (2022). Science needs affirmative action. Science, 375(6580), 473-473.
write