President
Barack Obama and his first Supreme Court nominee,
Judge
Sonia Sotomayor who presently sits on the bench of the
U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Sotomayor is the
first
Hispanic Supreme Court nominee in U.S. history.
La Jornada, Mexico
With Judge
Sotomayor, Obama Boosts Image of U.S. Supreme Court
"If
approved, Judge Sotomayor will arrive at the paramount judicial body of a
system of law that has been undermined, both politically and morally, by the
litany of abuses and judicial aberrations offered and legalized in the context
of the disastrous era of George W. Bush's White House."
EDITORIAL
Translated By Barbara
Howe
May 28, 2009
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article
(Spanish)
The president of
the United States, Barack Obama, has nominated New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor as
a candidate for a place on the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice David Souter,
who has held the post since 1990. So - if she is confirmed by the Senate -
which in principal doesn’t seem too complicated given the mostly Democratic
Congress - Sotomayor could become the first judge of Latino origin to assume a
seat on the highest judicial body in our neighbor country.
In the first
place, it should be noted that the nomination of a judge of Puerto Rican descent
carries a remarkable message about the sensitivity of the U.S. president to the
changes to that nation's society in recent decades - in particular his recognition
of the importance of the “Hispanic population” in the United States, where,
according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau, about 47 million people,
i.e.: one out of every six residents, is of Latino origin.
At the same time,
with the nomination of Sotomayor - identified with the “liberal wing” of U.S.
justice and whose record is highlighted by decisions against racial
discrimination and in favor of promoting the welfare of the most vulnerable
sectors of society - Obama is answering the appointments by ex-President George W. Bush of Justices Samuel
Alito and John Roberts, whose nominations were regarded by many analysts as concessions to the
most conservative sectors of the political class and our neighbor's society in
general.
It cannot be
ignored, by the way, that if approved, the judge from New York will arrive at
the paramount judicial body of a system of law that has been undermined, both
politically and morally, as a result of the litany of abuses and judicial
aberrations offered and legalized in the context of the disastrous era of
George W. Bush's White House tenure.
It should be
remembered, as an example, just last week, a majority of Supreme Court justices
rejected issuing a ruling against two senior officials of the previous
administration (the current director of FBI Robert Mueller and former Attorney
General John Ashcroft) who had been accused of designing the network of
detention and abuse used against suspected terrorists in the years after the September
11 attacks on New York and Washington.
This decision
meant, in the face of both national and international public opinion, an
additional blot on the image of the highest court in the United States, insofar
as it exposed the majority of its members as guarantors of the impunity of those
who are presumed to be responsible for crimes against humanity. And it was,
moreover, damaging to the credibility of Obama’s political agenda, the primary
slogan of which has been since before he arrived in the Oval Office last
January, the change and moral renewal of Washington, both domestically and
abroad.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
With these
considerations in mind, the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to be a member of the
Supreme Court of the United States - because of her racial background and above
all her professional credentials - is both praiseworthy and encouraging. One
can only hope that that this new justice will carry out the duties of her
office with the sensitivity and spirit of justice and legality that the job demands,
and that she will contribute to reversing the awful international image - by accurately
gauging the pulse of justice of her country.
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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US June 3, 6:04pm]
