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Senate Panel Approves Trump’s Nomination of Barrett in Spite of Democrats’ Boycott

Trump has said he believes the Supreme Court will decide the election’s outcome and has made clear he wants Barrett on the bench for any election-related cases.

Washington: The Republican-led US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to a lifetime Supreme Court seat despite a Democratic boycott, clearing the way for a final Senate confirmation vote planned for Monday.

By a 12-0 vote, the panel approved Barrett with all Republican members voting yes and the 10 committee Democrats boycotting the meeting after calling the confirmation process a sham. With Trump’s fellow Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority, Barrett’s confirmation appears certain.

Trump, who asked the Senate to confirm Barrett before the US election on November 3, 2020, in which he is being challenged by Democrat Joe Biden, applauded the committee vote, writing on Twitter: “Big day for America!”

Barrett, 48, has been a federal appeals court judge since 2017 and previously was a legal scholar the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Her confirmation would give the top U.S. judicial body a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices named by Trump.

“The Senate majority is conducting the most rushed, the most partisan and the least legitimate process in the long history of Supreme Court nominations,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters after the vote.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said the Democratic boycott was “their choice.”

“It will be my choice to vote the nominee out of committee. We’re not going to allow them to take over the committee,” Graham said.

The empty seats for the Democratic committee members had posters placed upon them bearing photographs of people who they argue would be hurt if the Affordable Care Act healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, is struck down as Trump has sought in a case to be argued before the justices on November 10, 2020.

Barrett, nominated on September 26, 2020, to succeed the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has criticized previous rulings upholding Obamacare but said during her confirmation hearing she has no agenda to invalidate the measure.

Democrats were incensed that Senate Republicans moved forward with Barrett’s confirmation process so near an election after refusing in 2016 to allow the chamber to act on a Supreme Court nomination by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama because it was an election year.

Schumer called the Republican hurry to confirm Barrett “a naked power grab” through a “sham vote,” arguing that Republicans broke the committee’s own rules by approving the nomination without Democrats present.

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No nominee to the Supreme Court has ever been confirmed by the Senate this close to a presidential election. More than 45 million ballots already have been cast. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned a confirmation vote on the Senate floor on Monday.

‘Law of Amy’

Calling the committee vote “a groundbreaking historic moment,” Graham said of Barrett: “The ‘law of Amy’ will not be applied to a case in controversy. It will be the law as written in the Constitution or by statute or whatever regulatory body she’s going to review. She will take her job on without agenda.”

A favourite of Christian conservatives, Barrett frustrated Committee Democrats during her confirmation hearing last week by sidestepping questions on abortion, presidential powers, climate change, voting rights, Obamacare and other issues.

Trump has said he believes the Supreme Court will decide the election’s outcome and has made clear he wants Barrett on the bench for any election-related cases.

Republicans are hoping Barrett’s confirmation can give a boost to incumbent senators in the party facing tough re-election fights, including Graham in South Carolina and Judiciary Committee members Joni Ernst in Iowa and Thom Tillis in North Carolina.

Some on the left have floated the idea of expanding the number of justices – fixed by federal law at nine – if Biden wins to counter the court’s rightward drift in light of the actions of Senate Republicans in 2016 and now. Republicans have decried the idea as “court-packing.”

Biden told the CBS program “60 Minutes” that if elected he would create a bipartisan commission of constitutional scholars to examine reforms for the “out of whack” federal judiciary, saying there could be various alternatives to consider besides expanding the Supreme Court.

Graham said expanding the number of justices after presidential elections would mark “the end of the independence of the court.”

(Reuters)

Supreme Court Slams ‘Inordinate Delay’ by Government Authorities in Filing Appeals

The bench said a preposterous proposition is sought to be propounded that if there is some merit in the case, the period of delay is to be given a go-by.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has deprecated the inordinate delays by government authorities in filing appeals before it and said they must pay for wastage of judicial time and such costs can be recovered from officers responsible.

A bench headed by Justice S.K Kaul said the apex court cannot be a place for the governments to walk in when they choose to ignore the period of limitation prescribed in the statute.

We have raised the issue that if the government machinery is so inefficient and incapable of filing appeals/petitions in time, the solution may lie in requesting the Legislature to expand the time period for filing limitation for government authorities because of their gross incompetence. That is not so, said the bench, also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari.

Till the statute subsists, the appeals/petitions have to be filed as per the statues prescribed, the bench said in its order while dealing with an appeal filed by Madhya Pradesh after a delay of 663 days.

The top court noted the explanation given in the application for condonation of delay which stated that it was due to unavailability of documents and process of arranging them and also that in bureaucratic process works, it is inadvertent that delay occurs.

We are constrained to pen down a detailed order as it appears that all our counselling to government and government authorities have fallen on deaf ears i.e., the Supreme Court of India cannot be a place for the governments to walk in when they choose to ignore the period of limitation prescribed, it said.

The bench said a preposterous proposition is sought to be propounded that if there is some merit in the case, the period of delay is to be given a go-by.

If a case is good on merits, it will succeed in any case. It is really a bar of limitation which can even shut out good cases. This does not, of course, take away the jurisdiction of the court in an appropriate case to condone the delay, it said.

The bench noted that such approach is being adopted and the object appears to be to obtain a certificate of dismissal from the Supreme Court to put a quietus to the issue and thus, say that nothing could be done because the highest court has dismissed the appeal.

It is to complete this formality and save the skin of officers who may be at default that such a process is followed. We have on earlier occasions also strongly deprecated such a practice and process. There seems to be no improvement, it said.

The purpose of coming to this court is not to obtain such certificates and if the government suffers losses, it is time when the concerned officer responsible for the same bears the consequences, the bench noted.

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The top court said no action is taken against the officers, who sit on the files and do nothing, and it is presumed that the court would condone the delay.

We are thus, constrained to send a signal and we propose to do in all matters today, where there are such inordinate delays that the government or state authorities coming before us must pay for wastage of judicial time which has its own value. Such costs can be recovered from the officers responsible, the bench said.

It noted in its order that no doubt, some leeway is given for government inefficiencies but the sad part is that authorities keep on relying on judicial pronouncements for a period of time when technology had not advanced and a greater leeway was given to the government.

The bench, which dismissed the appeal on the ground of delay, imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on Madhya Pradesh and said it be deposited within four weeks with the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee.

The amount be recovered from the officers responsible for the delay in filing the special leave petition and a certificate of recovery of the said amount be also filed in this court within the said period of time, it said.

The bench made it clear that if its order is not complied within time, it would be constrained to initiate contempt proceedings against the chief secretary of the state.

‘Why Not Have Statutory Body to Regulate TV News?’: Bombay HC Asks Centre

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, who appeared for the Union government, told the court that news channels “did not have an open hand as such.”

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday asked the Union government why there should not be a statutory body to regulate the content broadcast through television news channels, a poser coming in the backdrop of frenzied media coverage of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.

The court sought to know why the electronic media should have an “open hand” over its coverage.

“Is there a statutory mechanism for (TV news) broadcasters?” the HC asked.

“Just as how the Press Council of India exists for the print media, why don’t you (Union government) think of a similar council for the electronic media? Why should they have an open hand?” said a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni.

The bench was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) seeking that the press, particularly TV news channels, be directed to exercise restrain in their reportage on the death of Rajput (34) and the related probe by multiple agencies.

The pleas, filed by several retired senior police officers, activists and private citizens, claim that the press has been conducting a “media trial” into the case, ascribing roles and presuming the guilt of the accused persons, thus hampering a fair probe and trial into the matter.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, who appeared for the Union government, told the court that news channels “did not have an open hand as such.”

“It is not as if the government is not doing anything.

It does take action on complaints received (against channels),” Singh said.

“But ultimately, the government cannot control everything. The press has the freedom and its rights,” he said.

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The bench, however, pointed out that the government’s own affidavit, filed previously in the court, showed that on numerous occasions, it had forwarded the complaints it received, to private bodies such as the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and News Broadcasters Federation (NBF).

Earlier in the day, senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, who appeared for the NBA, had told the court that the government should be responsible in matters concerning media reportage, rather than outsourcing the responsibility to private bodies.

Kamat said that there existed statutory provisions and rules under the Cable TV Act and it was the Centre’s responsibility to enforce these provisions.

Instead, the ministry of information and broadcasting often forwarded the complaints it receives to the NBA and NBF, he said.

Kamat showed instances of complaints against news coverage in the Sushant case having been “forwarded” by the government to the NBA.

In the past, one TV news channel had refused to abide by the NBA’s recommendations in another case, saying it was not part of the association, Kamat said.

“The question is whether this outsourcing is permissible or whether the authorities have to be responsible to enforce what the statute provides,” Kamat said.

“When a government has a regime in place, where is the question of GOI (Government of India) abdicating its duties and asking these private, self-righteous associations (to look into complaints)?” he said.

Kamat argued that a media trial violated an accused’s right to life and personal liberty as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India and that it amounted to an interference in the administration of justice.

He urged the court to look at the “allied issue” of the “leakage of information by investigating agencies” while their probes are going on.

The HC will continue hearing the arguments in the case on Wednesday.