What are the three key points that Biden proposes to reform the Supreme Court?

When you only have six months left to reach the end of his term At the White House, US President Joe Biden on Monday laid out three key points for reforming the Supreme Court.

These include: establishing an amendment to remove immunity for former presidents, imposing a term of years of service for judges of the high court, and creating a more specific code of ethics than the existing one.

“Extremism is undermining public confidence in the Court’s decisions,” Biden said at a public event at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.

The president thus initially fulfills last week’s promise to focus on working until the last day of his mandate, after give up to continue in the campaign for the November elections.

The event took place on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed by Johnson and which ended racial segregation in the country.

The Democratic president’s proposal involves a constitutional amendment, which is why he stated: “No one is above the law.”

In this regard, he asked that there be no immunity for a former president because he believes that “he must answer to the law.”

“We are a nation of laws, not kings and dictators,” he added, referring to his recent electoral rival, former Republican President Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, a New York judge postponed Donald Trump’s sentencing until September 18. for charges arising from payment to a porn star into silence after the former US president requested a chance to argue that he should have been immune.

Sentencing had previously been scheduled for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention was scheduled to begin in Milwaukee on July 15.

Biden’s bill calls for a term of years of service to be imposed for the justices who make up the Supreme Court and recalled that the United States is “the only democracy in the world that grants life terms to the justices of the Court.”

Finally, he calls for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court, so that all judges would be exposed to scrutiny for outside income and certain gifts, although food and other “personal attentions” such as lodging in a person’s residence are usually exempt.

In November, the Court adopted its first code of conduct following revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted undeclared trips from a wealthy benefactor.

There were also reports this year that flags associated with then-President Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss were flown outside Justice Samuel Alito’s homes in Virginia and New Jersey.

In his speech, Biden lashed out at recent Supreme Court decisions such as the repeal of Roe vs Wade (2022), the ruling that granted women the freedom to have an abortion without having to overcome too many legal obstacles.

On the other hand, the president also criticized the Project 2025the conservative reform proposal – promoted by The Heritage Foundation – that promises to reform the federal government in the event that Trump returns to the White House.

Biden said the right-wing proposal “attacks American life” because, he said, among other intentions it seeks to repeal the right to birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants.

“The Supreme Court is being used as a weapon,” Biden said.

[Con información de The Associated Press y Reuters]

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