The issues are raised for American democracy while the conservative Supreme Court hears the business raft | US Supreme Court

A year turned out to be long on the scale of American justice.

Less than 12 months ago, the United States Supreme Court seriously discredited among the Liberals following a series of ethics scandals and a series of highly controversial and conservative decisions. He resulted in a Decision last July considerably expand the immunity of a chairman of the prosecution, practically guaranteeing that Donald Trump would escape criminal censorship for the insurrection of January 6, 2021 and the conservation of classified documents.

Until now, the actions of the court with the Democrats have fallen, that Joe Biden Called to radical reforms on the way in which the court was led and a constitutional amendment claiming that no president was above the law or immunized for crimes committed to power.

Now, with a re -elected and avenging Trump having been spread over democratic standards by issuing a shooting of executive decrees often illegal and unconstitutional, the same court – with the nine judges on the bench – is thrown into the improbable role of the potential Savior of American democracy.

Critics that have once mocked the judicial consequences of the conservative majority of six to three of the Court hope that the judges show enough loyalty to the American Constitution to mitigate the effect of Trump’s total aggression on a range of rights, the citizenship of the right of birth to the fundamental regular procedure against the deportation and to preserve the contours of the Republic of the Constitutional Republic.

“The Court is certainly a very important institution at the moment since the congress is completely flexible and does not assert its own prerogatives and that the executive power does not seem to be guided by an internal legal constraint,” said Jamal Greene, professor of law at Columbia University and former senior official of the High Radies Department of Justice in the Biden administration.

The court has already tried in several highly publicized cases since Trump’s return – moving in particular against the administration to order it to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Ábrego GarcíaA Maryland resident wrongly expelled to El Salvador.

But he ruled in favor of Trump, at least temporarily, in several others.

The issues are about to be raised even more as a series of cases resulting from decisions against the administration by the lower judges awaits the last word in the Supreme Court before the end of its current mandate this month.

These include: the rights of the lower courts to issue injunctions against Trump’s efforts to restrict citizenship of the right of birth, which is guaranteed in the Constitution; An attempt at Tennessee to prohibit or limit transgender care for minors; A complaint from Maryland’s parents against the authorization of LGBTQ + books in elementary schools; The need for insurers to cover preventive health costs under the affordable care law; And try to cut public funding for Planned Parenthood.

Added to this intimidating calendar, the judges can expect an additional unusual summer workload in the form of an apparently endless emergency caused by Trump’s without deduction attempt to transform the government.

Most experts believe that the court will ultimately rule against Trump’s attempt to undermine the rights of citizenship of the right of birth, since they are so clearly defined in the 14th amendment of the Constitution. However, the devil can be in detail. Some analysts believe that the court has already lent the case of the administration unjustified by credibility by Accept to consider his challenge against the powers of the lower courts to issue injunctions nationwide On the subject. Perhaps revealing, the court did not call for an additional briefing on the question of whether the executive decree of January 20 of Trump was legal.

Hopefully the current court can act as a brake on Trump seems disturbed given its conservative majority and the fact that three of its members – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy CONEY BARRETT – were appointed to the bench by Trump himself. In addition, judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are constantly taking hard line positions that seem predisposed to promote Trump.

However, the speculations according to which the chief judge, John Roberts and Coney Barrett have become disenchanted by the brutality of Trump’s actions fueled optimism. Some believe that they could vote with the three liberal judges of the Court, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – which constantly emit dissident opinions on right decisions – quite frequently on key opportunities to form an effective replacement.

But Leah Litman, professor of law at the University of Michigan and author of a book on the court entitled Lawless: how the Supreme Court takes place on conservative grievances, marginal theories and bad vibrations, is skeptical.

A recent decision The maintenance of the dismissal of the president of the head of the National Board of Labor Relations, Gwynne Wilcox, who gave the congress the power to limit the capacity of a president to withdraw civil servants from independent agencies-shows that conservative justice returns to the type, she said.

“Some people wondered:” Will the court have a second reflection on, for example, their immunity decision Donald Trump Such leading powers, including the powers of acting outside the law and above? “Says Litman.” I think Wilcox’s decision stressed that the answer is definitely not. »»

The approach of conservative judges is the Unit executive theoryThis postulates that the president has the sole authority on the executive power of the government, allowing him to dismiss members of the nominally independent agencies without reason.

“They have been pushing this theory for more than three decades and now they are fortunate to make it a fairly muscular version of the law,” said Litman. “The chief judge Roberts and judge Barrett understand that the court cannot let Donald Trump get away with everything, including the usurping the power of the congress or the obvious deprivation of individuals of a regular procedure. But unless that, I don’t think they have a kind of second reflection on their own opinions of executive power or the law more generally. “

The few cases of the court concern for Trump, maintains Litman, were “overexploited” and pale in importance compared to other decisions which have embraced the president, in particular by respecting the stripping of the temporary protected status of approximately 300,000 venezuelans.

Greene defined the approach of the court as “formalist” and poorly suited to counter the Trump’s revolution. He contrasted it with much more daring philosophy under the direction of chief Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s, when the court became deemed to apply in a creative manner the racial desegregation and the orders of civil rights in the South.

“The Modus Operandi is to exploit what it perceives as weaknesses in the application and responsibility system,” said Greene. “If he thinks that the courts will not be able to intervene, he will try to exploit this as much as he can, unless he is arrested by a political actor or an actor with more power.

“THE Trump administration exploits the formality and lack of creativity of the courts in general, but the Supreme Court in particular. »»

The brief of the court has already been exposed as being limited by the non-compliance with Trump in order to facilitate the return of Ábrego García to the United States.

According to Greene, the defect of the White House to control its own actions to ensure that they are in accordance with the law and the Constitution is already equivalent to a constitutional crisis, because the courts have no time and resources to counter unbridled violations.

This puts in place on the Supreme Court to fulfill its role as an ultimate arbiter, supports Litman.

“We must continue to demand that they really support the law,” she said. “I don’t think we should just give up and give in to their inclination not to enforce the law and allow Donald Trump to get away with legal violations. If they do not do so, force them to spend the capital and pay a price in their public approval rating. ”

• This article was modified on June 1, 2025 to specify that it was the 14th amendment, and not of article 14, of the Constitution which defined the rights of citizenship of the right of birth.