Watch out! When a nation’s elite judges, “the Wise” in France and the “Justices” in the U.S., make rulings, human rights are at risk. High courts like the Constitutional Council and Supreme Court, are, after all, tools to ensure the rule of the powerful.
This April, the French court rubber-stamped President Macron’s highly unpopular pension plan that raises the retirement age by two years. Opposed by the vast majority of the populace and all union associations, Macron rammed it into law without passage by parliament.
There is little democracy to either court. Members are politically selected and operate with no accountability. All nine U.S. Justices oppose ethics standards for themselves. This despite recent corruption scandals involving lavish “gifts” to Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch by their billionaire buddies.
Mass public outrage has sometimes moved SCOTUS, though not much lately. But what is the French working class to do? They have been on strike and in the streets in unprecedented numbers for three months.
Governance by the hoity-toity few is wearing mighty thin on both sides of the Atlantic.
