The editorial of the “World”. A few days before passing away, Friday, September 18 at the age of 87, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg had told her family that her wish “The most fervent” was not to be replaced on the Supreme Court until the future President of the United States took office at the White House on January 20.
It was, to tell the truth, no secret. Appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most progressive of the nine magistrates in America’s highest court, desperately clung to life, despite the cancer of the pancreas that was gnawing at her, in an attempt to overcome the presidential election of November 3. She hoped, without a doubt, the victory of the Democratic candidate.
But above all, as a jurist who had tirelessly, and with immense talent, defended respect for the Constitution and equal rights, she knew the risk that her disappearance would pose to the institutions in the uncertain period of the last length of the election campaign, then the transition, during which, between the election in November and the nomination in January, the outgoing administration still holds power.
Donald Trump plays with fire
The opportunity, however, is too good for Donald Trump. The president did not wait twenty-four hours to deny the tribute to the missing judge published, in unusually respectful and moderate terms, on his behalf by the White House shortly after the news of the death of this left-wing icon .
As Joe Biden, his Democratic opponent, asked him to postpone the appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor until the president-elect and the partially renewed Senate are in place, Mr. Trump tweeted that this process should, at contrary, to be carried out ” without delay “.
He also made no secret of wanting to make it an electoral argument: he will choose a woman, he announced, at a time when the voting intentions of the female electorate are mainly focused on the candidacy of Joe Biden . His intention is therefore to nominate his candidate this week.
The president is playing with fire. His eagerness to replace Judge Bader Ginsburg is not only politically indecent, since Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican Majority Leader in the Senate, himself blocked the appointment of a judge by President Barack Obama in 2016. eight months of the presidential election, on the grounds that the proximity of the electoral deadline did not allow it. It is also dangerous for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the pillar of democracy in the United States.
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