Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch Discuss Supreme Court Independence

Chief Justice John Roberts said Supreme Court justices are not “political actors” and that Americans misunderstand the work of the court. “I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” Roberts said, according to the Washington Examiner.

He added that the court must sometimes “make decisions that are unpopular” and that criticism should focus on the rulings themselves rather than personal attacks.

Roberts made the remarks in Pennsylvania about a week after the Supreme Court issued its ruling in a Louisiana congressional redistricting case. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurrence in the racial gerrymandering case, according to The Federalist.

Justice Neil Gorsuch said his “loyalty is the Constitution and laws of the United States.” He rebuffed any suggestion that members of the high court owe loyalty to the president who appointed them. Gorsuch urged Americans to “take ownership” and take self-governance seriously ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday. “We have to take ownership,” Gorsuch said, according to The Federalist.

Gorsuch told an interviewer that the Supreme Court “is doing pretty darn well” in handling the hardest cases. The court takes on “the 70 hardest cases in the country” and “we’re unanimous, the nine of us, about 40 percent of the time,” Gorsuch said, according to Reason magazine.

He also spoke about violent threats against the judiciary and the importance of judicial independence, according to Fox News.

The remarks by Roberts and Gorsuch follow years of intense scrutiny over the court’s rulings, internal leaks and low public confidence in the institution. Gorsuch has spoken about being “fearless” and “independent” after attacks from former President Donald Trump, according to ABC News.

Trump has targeted Roberts and other justices who voted against him in the opinion that struck down tariffs the president levied under an emergency-powers law.

Separately, the Supreme Court dealt with a long-running antitrust dispute between Apple and Epic Games over App Store fees. The court affirmed a Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that deemed Apple in contempt, according to the New York Post. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the court.