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In the landmark 1973 decision of Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court held that the right to privacy provided by the 14th amendment to the US Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Last month, a leaked draft of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization revealed that a majority of the Supreme Court is poised to overturn that decision.
How did it come to this? In part, it’s a result of the extreme politicisation of the US judiciary, with judges routinely appointed based on their political views. Many people voted for former US President Donald Trump because he promised to appoint conservative judges. Many others voted for President Joe Biden because he promised to appoint judges that would protect Roe and other progressive laws.
Especially prominent in leading the charge against Roe v Wade and the politicisation of the US courts has been the Federalist Society, a libertarian-conservative legal movement. Founded in 1982, the society has played a major role in “deliberately, diligently shifting the country’s judiciary to the right”. As well as training and socialising conservative law students, lawyers and professors, the society helps appoint young conservatives to prominent positions in government and on the courts.
The society’s success has been startling. Drawing on an expansive understanding of free speech, it has been influential in weakening laws that limit how much can be spent on elections (the 2020 US election cost more than $14 billion). It has made gun control more difficult, almost led to the overthrow of Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, and helped gut voting rights protections. Six of the nine judges on the US Supreme Court are current or former members of the Federalist Society.
Fortunately, political views are not relevant for appointment to the judiciary in Australia. But we must be vigilant: some politicians are publicly agitating for the creation of a similar legal movement here.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/has-us-style-politicisation-of-the-courts-come-to-australia-185384