Civilians since fighting broke out between the country month ago. There is growing anger against frances president s Emmanuel Macron with new protests after mccrone bowed to crack down on what he calls radical islam. Turkeys president has accused him of having an antimuslim agenda. He framed the incident as xenophobic and as llama phobic. An encore there is a belief that the slides islamophobia, turco phobia is on the rise among european countries. He tried to differentiate between european people and the leaders who he means actually, french president macron and netherlands politicians and he actually accused them for being fascist and racist. U. S. President ial candidates are making their final push to win over voters. Joe biden cast his vote in his home state of delaware. Nearly 70 million americans have already voted. The chief executives of facebook, google and twitter are being questioned about how they moderate content. The Senate Committee is looking to reform laws that protect Tech Companies from being held liable for users posts. The executives argue those protections are needed. More news as always on our website at al jazeera. Com. I will be back with the Al Jazeera Newshour in under 30 minutes time. Coming up next, inside story. Stay with us. How far to the right is the u. S. Supreme court shifting echo newly appointed conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett has declared herself a constitutional originalist. What does that mean and how can her arrival influence the decisions of americas highest court for a generation. This is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program. Im imran khan. She defines herself as an originalist, meaning that the u. S. Constitution should be interpreted as intended by its authors centuries ago. Her critics fear she wont be moving with the times on religious rights, the climate crisis, health care, abortion to name a few. The senates confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as u. S. Supreme Court Justice gives a six to three conservative majority over their liberal colleagues and that raises concerns over how her philosophy could shape the rulings of americas highest court for decades to come. Our White House Correspondent explains more. With the swearing in of Amy Coney Barrett to the highest court in the United States, the il ideological makeup of that court has shifted decidedly to the right on the political spectrum. In other words conserving at conservative and potential rulings that could unfold in the area of religious rights, religious freedom and health care. There is going to be a test to see just how conservative this new court is with a ruling thats expected on november 10 regarding the Affordable Care act and the ruling could have a major impact on health care in this country. There are other issues this court could also have an effect on and that is in the area of environmentalism. If there are regulations seen as burdensome, this could be something that could concern environmental activists and also when it comes to Corporate America and even also national security. That could have a big impact when it comes to immigration policies. These are all areas that are being watched very clear fully carefully now that the court has a change in its ideological perspective. That has a lot to do with the 2020 election. If joe biden wins, he is getting a lot of pressure from progressives who believe there is a legislative mechanism in order to try and pack the court. That means expanding the number of justices from nine, potentially 11, 12 and then allowing a democratic president to make those appointments, altering the ideolalanceog of the Supreme Court. Lets bring in our guests. Tom is a senior legal fellow at the heritage commission. Harry litman is of Legal Affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. Hes also a former u. S. Attorney and previously served as a law clerk to Thurgood Marshall and anthony kennedy. In new york is vincent warrant, civil rights attorney and executive director at the center of constitutional rights. I would like to begin in fairfax virginia. It seems anathema to the rest of the world that the highest court in the u. S. Has appointees that have a political opinion, a political slant. For most of the rest of the world when they think of u. S. Justice, they think of it as being blind. But thats really not the case, is it . Just in the introduction to this conversation i wrote down five words that were said that i think are misleading about how the courts in the United States operate. Those words are policy, what the framers intended, conservative, ideological and to the right. Those are all political terms and i think thats the wrong way to evaluate what courts do in the decisions that judges render. Even the case involving the Affordable Care act. The decision will not be announced november 10. It will only be the oral argument. And i think most people believe that the outcome of the legal issues the Supreme Court will not strike down obama care. Whats important is that judges approach similar issues sometimes as legislators or politicians do, but they do so very differently. Its legal issues that are before the Supreme Court, not policy issues and not political issues. They do have consequences certainly judging is about the process of interpreting the law and each case. Therefore with regard to Justice Barrett, the approach that c has said she finds most compelling, whats often referred to as an original is him is an approach that seeks to minimize the external political and ideological and all of those pressures as to the meaning of the constitution. Judges dont just interpret, they also apply. Its the application of the constitution that doesnt change in its meaning to new cases that means that our constitution is just as adaptive as any other. Lets bring in vincent warrant in new york. What we are hearing is effectively theres nothing to worry about. She may have this ideology of original is him, but thats to the benefit of the constitution. I disagree. Theres a lot to worry about both with Justice Barretts approach and the approach of original is him. Heres the challenge. My colleague was saying a lot of politics are embedded in the way the show described judicial functioning and that its really about the law. The problem is that the law does not, has not and will never exist outside of the political realm in which those laws have to be decided or evaluated. In 1789 when the u. S. Constitution passed, that is true. It is important and its actually quite significant to look at the question of Justice Barrett and regionalism because in effect the originalist approach is essentially freezing the legal analysis and perhaps the factual analysis to 1789 when the constitution was passed, ignoring and not paying attention to how the society, our values, norms and policies have evolved since then. The troubling effect and its all most a necessary fact is that if you are freezing your analysis in 1789, the farther away you get from 1789, the more intention the law is going to be with the way people actually live their lives. Thats what we are going to see with Justice Barrett particularly around the Affordable Care act and environmentalism. There is a report that says 76 of the time she has ruled in favor of corporations and not with respect to people. Thats not just a concern to environmental activists. Thats a concern to everybody. Its very much like the coronavirus situation. Environmentalism and Global Warming is a fact and we really should be thinking about judges that can help interpret the law to be able to help us get to a safer place rather than pretending it doesnt exist. Its interesting because vincent warrant talks about the environment. I was watching a film on tuesday night about the early life of ruth bader ginsburg. One of the characters says to a classroom of people, law should not worry about the weather of the day, but it should worry about the climate of the era. We are talking about a judge who is going to bring in a more conservative climate. This is something that she can do because its a lifetime appointment. She doesnt have to worry about politics so therefore she can nail her colors to the mast. Its not just her. The issue is she is has joined at least four other extreme conservatives and the sixth, the chief justice is known as relatively conservative himself. There is no doubt that over the last few years, the president along with the senate has had a concerted effort to put into play justices who are at the very very extreme of the legal spectrum. If you had 100 people in a room, all responsible, respectable, intellectually with integrity. The problem is you have taken a slice of the people in only the right 5 . They are out of step that means with the Legal Profession as a whole and also of course with the results for the American People. When the court has been in that position before, its been bad for the court and its also the case now with five they have a monolithic majority and they dont have to interact and reason with people on the others as theyve done before. Its not her, its her joining who are very much on the extreme edge of american legal culture and that portends a series of decisions in a series of areas that will be unresponsive, not the best strongest view of the law and for decades to come all kinds of issues we cant even anticipate sitting here now. Having heard our guest in la jolla and new york, you still think there is nothing to worry about. What was described as originalist him is not originalist him. She describes herself as that. We are not putting words in her mouth. She defines original is improperly, which is that the constitution or statutes for that matter, that they mean what the authors intended them to mean. She seeks for original meaning. The idea that it freezes anything other than what the constitution means, i dont know what you would call that, but its not original is him. Thats why i said that the top that original meaning can be applied to cases that involve changing facts and adapt to all kinds of things. When you use words like original is him and looking at the constitution the way the framers intended, the language in parts of the constitution are very clear. One example, u. S. Constitution calls for an army and navy. It doesnt call for an air force. So therefore if you are an originalist, the air force is unconstitutional list. Ask in is not a literalist. The point is when uni in our daily lives interpret something that someone else wrote, what we are trying to determine is what they meant by what they wrote. So if the question is whether the framers of the constitution who put army and navy in the constitution meant literally only army and navy and nothing else, that would be a literalist approach. Thats not an originalist approach. Its a constitution, its not a set of regulations and its not even a statute. If you asked members of congress whether they just simply put words on a page and dont mean anything or whether judges have the power to tell them what their statutes mean, they would look at you like you are crazy because the lawmaker whether thats Congress Passing a statute or the process for ratifying the constitution isnt saying. Those who have authority to make the law dont just put words on a page, they determine what those words mean. Judges dont have the authority to change the meaning of the law, but this its their job to apply the meaning to new circumstances casebycase. Words like conservative and liberal or terms. Lets put that vincent warren. Let me put that to vincent warren. Lets get a response. These are political terms, you shouldnt be using them, the law should be applied equally. There is no such thing as long without politics. I think that what we are talking about is a distinction without a difference because every judge, every lawyer when they are looking at statutory or constitutional interpretations can tell you per cicely the way it was just outlined and thats not what makes it dangerous. What makes it dangerous is when you take the literal meaning or the actual meaning of what the framers meant, it can and will often lead you to a different conclusion as to what that meaning means for us today. Can you get there from here. If they didnt mean it, then you dont get it. Thats the challenge we have thats not originalist him. You can take what they intended the constitution to mean. Let me bring in harry litman. You are in california, you write about this stuff on a daily basis. I have a couple points to note. I agree that originalist him is not the same as freezing things. Justice barrett testified thats the constitution states principles and the job of the court is to apply those principles to current day affairs. In that sense it is a Different Task and its not that that is problematic. On the other hand on this liberal conservative point, its true that judges do Something Different from legislators. On the other hand, its undeniable that republican president s and in particular President Trump and the president s who have appointed the five people who now have a hammerlock on the majority selfconsciously try to put think what they would say are the most conservative, judicially conservative. We can haggle about the terms, but the fact they are all from a very narrow stratum that is not representative of either the American People for the Legal Profession as a whole is whats the deep problem going forward. Whats your reaction . Im not sure where the standard comes from the ninemember court must represent an entire country. The standard is its the Supreme Court of the United States and it should represent the people. Or be representative of the Legal Professional at a particular time. I dont know where that idea comes from. Its the constitution. They are different from politicians but they are also different from lawyers. This is about the press. Im going to stop you there because you made a very sweeping statement i want you to clarify. You ar saying that the nine Supreme Court judges to not represent the American People and dont have to. Is that what you are saying . Im saying that any group of nine people cannot represent a country of 330 Million People in any but the most general way. And the courts, they are not a representative institution. The courts are supposed to follow law, not particular political winds of the day and of regionalism is about limiting the sort of discretion and the personal ability of judges to impose upon the law. Thank you for clarifying. We are running out of time and i want to get to everybody. Vincent warren. I see you shaking your head. What have you got to say in response to tom . I agree that it is unfair to ask nine people to represent the entire country and it is not a representative body except for the fact of the process of judicial appointments. The way that we very typically think of litigators to perhaps lean from that appointment which way they might be leaning. This is not a black box that the facts go in and the case comes out in a way thats unpredictable. Its very often predictable based on the conservative or liberal nature of the president. I would also say that while nine people cant be held to represent 330 million person country, its very rare that nine people get to affect the lives of 330 Million People and at some level we have to be thinking about that question of accountability to the people this particular president has made very clear what his political goal is in appointing Justice Barrett and i think that does a disservice frankly to the process and to Justice Barrett because it properly and rightly raises these questions. I want to get to everybody else. Harry litman, one of the reasons judges can be independent is because they have lifetime terms. It also means they can be littering in their political position because they dont have to worry about losing their jobs. Is there more that the Supreme Court needs to be reformed . That aspect of it, the independence. People think of reforming just because these battles have become so bloody or political. When we talk about a representative court, its not representative in a political sense. Whats unrepresentative is these five people hold legal views that are very much in the extreme and most lawyers and judges would reject. And when you have five of them making those final decisions, you have a problem. I dont think life tenure is necessary to get rid of. On the other hand, this socalled Court Packing idea. Whats happened is an act of rank hypocrisy from the republicans who prevented president obamas choice from going forward, saying the next president had to decide and then in complete reversal, completely unprincipled, rammed through Justice Barrett. That is the packing thats already occurred. They artificially lowered the numbers of the court and then raised it to nine. It is such an extreme and in bettering set of political raw maneuvers on their part that you will in fact have very strong sentiment on the part of the democrats should they take the senate for expanding the court. Let me bring in tom here. Sorry harry. Court packing. Should that be made illegal . Thats clarify what Court Packing is. Filling vacancies that come along day today is not Court Packing. Thats what the president s job is. Thats what the senates job is. We could talk about the differences between 2016 and 2020, but Court Packing is changing the institution of the Supreme Court by adding positions and then filling them. If the solution is to increase the number of justices, i guess that means the problem is the current number. Thats not the problem. The Supreme Court has had nine members since 1869. They decide half the cases they did 25 years ago. The number of justices isnt the problem nor was there anything illegitimate about how either the scully a vacancy in 2016 ginsberg vacancy in 2020 were handled. The solution is not to change. Let me bring in vincent warren. I did ask you the same question. Court packing, is it time for Supreme Court reform . Lifetime tenure i think is fine and not the problem. I have a different take on the Court Packing situation. This is a situation that the court has been inundated with a range of very right wing conservative judges who i think swing the country in the legal analysis to the right and a very destructive way for generations to come. We have two choices. Either we live with it and say thats just the way the cookie ambles, or we have to think more proactively about a way to rebalance the way this court adjudicates issues that affect our lives. I dont think any reasonable person with think that having a far rightleaning federal judiciary just because you had a Republican Senate and a republican president that spewed out federal court judges like they were handing out candy, no one reasonably think that would be good for the polity and for justice moving forward over the next 50 years and there needs to be some attention paid to that. I want to thank everybody for a very spirited debate. And thank you for watching. You can see the program any time by visiting our website, al jazeera. Com. For further discussion, go to our facebook page. Facebook. Com a. J. Inside story. For me imran khan and the whole team here, bye for now. Hey, im darius rucker. Coming up onreel south. [henrietta] the southern way of life was something sacred. Close your mind, do not question. [darius] in 1940, a young woman left sweet home alabama for the porta vida of costa rica. [henrietta] i would be out there exriencing anybody strange,anybody d. [dariu in a tale of romance d revolution. One woman a quest for adventure finds herself in a true awakening. He said marriage to would ner be borg. [darius] she is the first lady of the revolution. This time onreel south. [female narrator] support for this program is provided by south arts, sponsors of the southern circuit tour of independent filmmakers,
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