The most senior member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing appeared to push back Friday against President Donald Trump’s denigration of judges and his broad attacks on the legal system, arguing that a healthy democracy depends on more than technical compliance with the laws on the books.
Speaking to law students in Washington, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the country is going through a challenging period of increasing public disrespect for judges, lawyers and courts.
“One of the things that’s troubling so many right now is many of the standards that are being changed right now were norms that governed officials into what was right and wrong,” Sotomayor said during an appearance at Georgetown University Law Center. “Once norms are broken, then you’re shaking some of the foundation of the rule of law.”
During her remarks, Sotomayor made no direct mention of Trump, who received an unusual rebuke last week from Chief Justice John Roberts for calling for the impeachment of federal judges who have ruled against Trump administration policies.
Some of Sotomayor’s criticism seemed to be directed at Trump appointees and supporters in Congress who hold law degrees and have amplified those calls for impeachment and joined in personal attacks on judges who’ve blocked Trump initiatives.
“Law schools … are not doing enough to teach about the meaning of rule of law. They have not done enough to teach about our respect for the Constitution,” Sotomayor said during an exchange with Georgetown law Dean William Treanor. “The fact that some of our public leaders are lawyers advocating or making statements challenging the rule of law tells me that, fundamentally, our law schools are failing.”
Sotomayor also warned that any erosion in judicial independence will undermine the rule of law in the U.S.
“We have to get up and explain and repeat and explain again why judicial independence is critical to everyone’s freedom, because arbitrary power is just that, and it means that anyone is going to be subject to unfairness at someone else’s whim,” the liberal justice said. “The fact that you may like the use of arbitrary power against someone else at the moment, and you can target whomever you want at any moment, you have to be worried about the day that will turn on you.”
Several key Trump administration policies are the subject of emergency appeals pending at the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration has asked the high court to lift a court order blocking Trump from firing thousands of probationary federal workers. It also asked the justices to overturn a judge’s order temporarily preventing Trump from using a wartime law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without going through the traditional immigration-court process. And the administration filed a trio of applications seeking to rein in the authority of district court judges to block policies on a nationwide basis.
Sotomayor, appointed to the high court by President Barack Obama in 2009, acknowledged Friday that she has often found herself in dissent in significant cases on the current court where conservative justices outnumber liberals, 6-3.
Sotomayor made specific mention of her dissent in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion after nearly half a century. Despite her disagreement with the outcome of that case, the justice said it serves as a reminder that decisions she views as erroneous are not set in stone.
“As we know from recent events, the court does change its mind,” she said. ”So, this is not without hope.”
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