Justice O’Connor: US Edging Towards Dictatorship
The Guardian (UK) reports:
Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired lastmonth after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in dangerof edging towards dictatorship if the party’s rightwingers continue toattack the judiciary.
In a strongly worded speech at GeorgetownUniversity, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily LawBulletin, Ms O’Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeateddenunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said,be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.
Ms O’Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supremecourt justice, declared: “We must be ever-vigilant against those whowould strong-arm the judiciary.”
Shepointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communistcountries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary mightlead. “It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls intodictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding thesebeginnings.”
In her address to an audience of corporate lawyerson Thursday, Ms O’Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issuedlast year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House ofRepresentatives, over a court ruling in a controversial “right to die”case.
After the decision last March that ordered a brain-deadwoman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Mr DeLaysaid: “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answerfor their behaviour.”
Mr DeLay later called for the impeachmentof judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of”an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbedtheir nose at Congress and the president”.
Such threats, MsO’Connor said, “pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom”,and she told the lawyers in her audience: “I want you to tune your earsto these attacks … You have an obligation to speak up.
“Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence – people do,” the retired supreme court justice said.