![]() Since 1925 the nine justices who make up the court have held the power to decide which cases they hear. The cases that do make it, though, are usually important. It is asked to review more than 8,000 cases every year and only generally accepts around 60-70 of those. The chances of cases reaching the supreme court are small. If, however, a case involves federal law or the US constitution, the document which created and governs the system of government, the parties may appeal to the supreme court. Each state then has its own supreme court responsible for interpreting state laws and constitutions. Then there are a level of appeals courts which hear challenges to the result or the procedure followed by the trial court. On the lower level are the trial courts, those that initially hear cases, often with a jury. The court sits at the top of the nation’s legal system. In all of these cases the three conservative justices appointed by former president Donald Trump (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett) were in the majority, with the court’s three liberals (Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) in the minority. This could severely restrict US president Joe Biden’s climate change agenda if states are no longer bound by strict carbon emissions limits. It held that the Environmental Protection Agency, a national government body, cannot regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. The ruling makes even more religion in public life possible.Īnd the court also restricted the power of federal agencies to take actions not explicitly handed to them by Congress. Holding that excluding religion from government consideration discriminates against people of faith. ![]() It has also fundamentally reinterpreted the relationship between church and state, by lowering what has for decades been described as the “wall of separation” between the institutions of government and those of the church. But the day before, on June 23, the court also expanded the right to publicly carry weapons (in the aftermath of two mass shooting events and the passage of the first federal gun control legislation since the 1990s). The Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling gathered the most coverage, hardly surprising for a decision which overturned Roe v Wade and ended national protection for accessing abortion services after 49 years. The reason: a series of decisions which are already having – and will continue to have – a massive impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. The US Supreme Court is in the news around the world.
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