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FILE PHOTO: Members of media speak in front of cameras outside the premises of the Supreme Court in New Delhi, India October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File Photo
Indian government opposes criminalizing marital rape as “excessively harsh”
India’s Supreme Court is hearing petitions this month and will soon rule on whether to criminalize marital rape, but the government opposes the idea, stating it would be “excessively harsh.” The Interior Ministry argues that while a man should face “penal consequences” for raping his wife, criminalizing the act “may lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage.”
The petitions seek to overturn Section 375 of India’s Penal Codewhich lists “exemptions” for sex to be considered rape, including “by a man with his own wife” if she is not a minor. A lower Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on the issue in 2022, but when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government overhauled the country’s penal code in July, the exemption stayed on the books. Modi’s party, the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, has longopposed changes for reasons of “illiteracy, poverty, social customs and values.”
But activists argue the 164-year-old law must be amended to combat systemic gender inequality. Sexual violence against women is rampant in India, andmedical workers are still striking over the August rape and murder of a trainee female doctor in Kolkata, for which a man was formally charged last Monday.
Around the world, more than 100 countries have outlawed marital rape. We’re watching whether public outcry – and a high court verdict - will force Modi’s government to do the same.
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, U.S., June 27, 2024.
Please approach the bench! What’s on the Supreme Court's docket this season?
On Monday, the US Supreme Court took the bench again for a session where it will hear 40 cases, including some potentially landmark rulings on a Tennessee law outlawing hormone treatments for transgender minors; the Biden administration’s effort to ban “ghost guns,” which are assembled from kits purchased untraceably over the internet; and an Oklahoma capital punishment case where the state attorneys general have concluded the prosecutors hid evidence that could have led to an acquittal. All of these speak to culture war issues over which Americans are deeply divided – and at a time when faith in the Supreme Court is at its lowest.
What’s not on the docket? A case that could provide an answer on whether state abortion bans may conflict with federal law. The court decided not to rule on a case in Texas where the Biden administration invoked the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay. The administration argues this act preempts more restrictive state regulations on providing emergency abortion services.
The decision not to take up the case leaves the Texas court’s decision stopping the federal government from enforcing its mandate on emergency abortions in the state in place. It has been criticized by abortion-rights activists and physicians but also by Justices Samuel Alito and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two judges on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
And the election looms. Although the court’s caseload features fewer blockbuster cases than last year, when it ruled on presidential immunity, it does have one potentially huge looming responsibility: to potentially shape the outcome of the US election. Before the vote, SCOTUS could be asked to resolve last-minute disputes over ballot access or vote-counting rules. And after Nov. 5, it could be called upon to decide a winner if there is a serious dispute over the results.
Trump’s Jan. 6 acts were personal, not presidential, prosecutor argues
In a court filing unsealed on Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith said Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in an effort to retain power despite losing the 2020 election, including pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electoral votes. Smith is trying to persuade Judge Tanya Chutkan that the former president’s actions were of a personal nature, and thus don’t fall under the sweeping protections for presidential acts the Supreme Court granted earlier this year.
The unsealed documents recount a Nov. 12, 2020, meeting between Trump and Pence where the vice president attempted to deflect pressure from Trump by offering avenues for deescalation and a peaceful transfer of power. “Don’t concede but recognize the process is over,” Pence told him, urging Trump to instead run again in 2024. According to the filing, Trump replied that he was not willing to wait.
If Smith is successful, the acts in question may remain a part of the indictment against Trump as the case moves forward. If not, the government has a harder case to make. Either way, there will be no resolution before the November election — and if Trump wins, well, all bets on Smith’s case are off.
U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith makes a statement to reporters about the 37 federal charges returned by a grand jury in an indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on charges of unauthorized retention of classified documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, as Smith speaks at his offices in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2023.
Special counsel drops new Trump indictment
Special counsel Jack Smith filed a new superseding indictment in former President Donald Trump’s election interference case on Tuesday. Smith aimed to conform with the Supreme Court’s ruling granting broad immunity to presidents for official acts. The new indictment removes charges associated with Trump allegedly directing his Justice Department to conduct phony election fraud investigations and choose fraudulent electors, as the high court ruling protects them as official acts.
Smith filed the indictment just ahead of the DOJ’s “60-day rule,” which discourages filing politically sensitive cases near elections. He said in a written notice to the court that the indictment reflects the finding of “a new grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in this case.”
Smith will not seek to have Trump re-arraigned, and it’s highly unlikely that the case will be resolved before the election.
What does this mean for the campaign? It may not move the needle much, says Eurasia Group’s Clayton Allen.
“Voters will have a hard time keeping [Trump’s] different cases separate, and we've seen them recede as important factors in polling and public opinion,” he says. “Basically, the criminal stuff has been overshadowed by, well, everything that has happened in the last couple of months.”
Still, the ongoing legal actions could have significant implications for Trump. “The dogged attempts by federal prosecutors," says Eurasia Group US managing director Jon Lieber, "make the stakes of this election clear: If Trump loses, he's probably going to jail.”
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, U.S., July 29, 2024.
Biden seeks Supreme Court reform
On Monday, President Joe Biden proposed reforms to the US Supreme Court for the first time since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried and failed to expand the number of justices in 1937. In his address from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, TX, Biden proposed term limits, a constitutional amendment to counteract the recent presidential immunity decision, and a binding code of conduct.
“I have great respect for our institutions and the separations of powers,” Biden said. “But extremism is undermining public confidence in the court’s decisions.”
The nitty-gritty: Biden proposed 18-year term limits, enabling a president to appoint a new justice every two years. He also wants an enforcement mechanism added to the voluntary ethics code the court adopted in November, echoing Justice Elena Kagan’s support for an enforcement mechanism. Biden also called for a constitutional amendment to make clear that former presidents are not immune to federal criminal indictments.
“I thank President Biden for highlighting the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis,” said Dick Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But any legislation would need the support of a majority in the Republican-led house where Speaker Mike Johnson has called the proposal a “dangerous gambit” that would be “dead on arrival,” and accused the Democrats of delegitimizing the courts “simply because they disagree with some of its recent decisions.”
Biden has expressed disagreement with many of SCOTUS’s recent decisions, but this address marked a shift toward the progressive flank in his party, which has called for reforms even amid fears it would politicize the court. The proposals also come as Biden’s time in office draws to a close, and he made the announcement without reaching out to the Senate judiciary committee, signaling that is likely pre-election messaging, not a legislative priority.
However, presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris notably said she supports the reforms, which, if the Democrats manage to win the House in November, could potentially lead to some portion of them being implemented.
Supreme Court: Trump gets substantial immunity
The Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a big win on Monday. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the conservative justices ruled that presidents have absolute immunity for actions related to their core responsibilities while in office. The decision will almost certainly delay the charges brought against the former president in Washington, DC, for allegedly plotting to overthrow the 2020 election.
Trump contends that he is entitled to absolute immunity from the three conspiracy charges and one count of obstructing an official proceeding brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Lower courts rejected the claim, but SCOTUS has ordered them to reassess whether Trump’s alleged action on Jan. 6 “qualifies as official or unofficial,” with the understanding that he would be immune from prosecution for official actions carried out as president.
The rationale: The court’s basic argument was that without these protections, a president would be unable to do his or her unique job independently and effectively, for fear of being prosecuted by political opponents or successors.
In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that Monday's immunity decision, "effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding."
Joe Biden spoke out against the ruling on Monday night, echoing Sotomayor's sentiment that “there are no kings in America,” and said that the ruling means there are “virtually no limits” on presidential power. The president also said that voters deserved to have an answer through the courts before Election Day about what took place on Jan. 6. The court's ruling called for prosecutors to detail their evidence against Trump in front of a federal judge — and the public — at a fact-finding hearing, though it is unclear whether that will take place before Nov. 5.
Trump has prevailed in the court this session. Even before the rulings, the high court’s decision to take up the immunity case worked in Trump’s favor to delay his prosecution until after the November election.
The court also heard two other Trump-related cases this term concerning Jan. 6. The first, an attempt to bar Trump from the ballot in Colorado under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, was unanimously rejected in March. The second ruling limited the use of a federal obstruction law to prosecute rioters who allegedly stormed the Capitol, and it will also affect Trump’s DC indictment because two of the four charges against him are based on that law.
Monday's immunity decision followed a wave of consequential rulings on Friday. Potentially the most impactful, but least flashy, was the Chevron decision, which limits the power of federal agencies and undermines the basis for upholding thousands of regulations by dozens of federal agencies.
In its final decision of the session, the court on Monday also ruled to keep in place a hold on any efforts by Texas and Florida state governments to limit how social media platforms regulate content, ordering the lower courts to review the case again. The court will reconvene in October.
US Supreme Court
SCOTUS throws a bone to Jan. 6 rioters
On Friday, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that hampers the Justice Department's ability to charge rioters for taking part in Jan. 6 riot on the grounds that they obstructed an official proceeding (the counting of the electoral college votes). The prosecutors were charging the rioters using a statute that forbids tampering with evidence and was enacted in 2002 in regard to the Enron accounting scandal.
In a 6-3 decision along nonideological lines, the court said that prosecutors must prove that defendants attempted to tamper with or destroy documents or “other things used in the proceeding” for the charge to apply.
Federal prosecutors have charged hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants with obstructing an official proceeding, as the Capitol attack aimed to upend Congress’s certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Former President Donald Trump also faces the charge in his federal Jan. 6 case.
Is this a win for Trump?"It's still unclear how this ruling impacts Trump specifically, but it could overturn many of the prosecutions against Jan. 6 defendants who are not Trump,” says Eurasia Group analyst Noah Daponte-Smith. “Even if the ruling does vacate some of the charges against Trump, it doesn't threaten the main thrust of his trial — he still faces two other charges."
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor makes a point as she answers questions during the third day of her U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington July 15, 2009.
Sotomayor accuses conservative justices of ‘power grab’
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday did not mince words in a dissenting opinion over the Supreme Court’s ruling that limits the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, accusing the conservative majority of making a “power grab” by undermining the enforcement power of federal agencies.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court said the SEC’s in-house tribunals that are overseen by administrative law judges who report to federal agencies — as opposed to federal courts — violated the right to a trial by jury.
What’s the big deal? The decision hampers the SEC’s ability to penalize people it thinks have committed fraud. It could also have major implications for the enforcement powers of other regulatory agencies.
“Litigants seeking further dismantling of the ‘administrative state’ have reason to rejoice in their win today, but those of us who cherish the rule of law have nothing to celebrate,” Sotomayor wrote.
SCOTUS ain’t done. The court has not yet issued rulings in the Trump immunity case or the case pertaining to Jan. 6 rioters, both of which touch on hot-button issues as the country barrels toward a presidential election that many voters are not especially enthused about.