Journalism of Courage
The US Supreme Court appeared poised on Monday to back President Donald Trump administration’s argument that the presidential powers must expand and control firing of independent board members, which has been protected from any interference from the federal government for about a century, AP reported.
The apex court was hearing the argument revolving around the legality of President Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member and the court’s conservative majority appeared to suggest it would overturn a unanimous 90-year-old decision that has limited when presidents can fire independent agency members.
The US Justice Department has filed an appeal against a lower court’s order which concluded that President Trump exceeded his powers when he went ahead to fire Democratic FTC member Rebecca Slaughter in March even before her term was set to end.
According to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the crux of the issue is that the officials who direct the agencies “are exercising massive power over individual liberty and billion-dollar industries” without being accountable to anyone.
Though Liberal justices, including Justice Elena Kagan opined that such a ruling favouring the federal government in a case known as Humphrey’s Executor would give the president “massive unchecked, uncontrolled power.”
Before Trump, no president has ever sought to take over the control of firings in independent agencies which regulate a wide spectrum of arenas in US, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court is poised to favour the Trump administration and overturn the 1935 case of Humphrey’s Executor v United States which has effectively protected the members of independent agencies from dismissal.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that if such a decision is made then agencies would lose their expertise. “So having a President come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” Jackson said.
(with inputs from AP)
