[[link removed]]

CONFIDENCE IN U.S. COURTS PLUMMETS TO RATE FAR BELOW PEER NATIONS  
[[link removed]]


 

Adam Liptak
December 17, 2024
New York Times
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Very few countries have experienced similar declines, typically in
the wake of wrenching turmoil. Experts called the data, from a new
Gallup poll, stunning and worrisome. _

Many polls have found steep drops in public approval of the Supreme
Court after its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization, which eliminated the constitutional right to
abortion.Credit..., Eric Lee/The New York Times

 

Public confidence in the American legal system has plunged over the
past four years, a new Gallup poll found
[[link removed]],
putting it in the company of nations like Myanmar, Syria and
Venezuela.

“These data on the U.S. courts are stunning,” said Tom Ginsburg,
an authority on comparative and international law at the University of
Chicago.

After the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the
several prosecutions of Donald J. Trump, Professor Ginsburg said,
“there is a perception that the judiciary has become inexorably
politicized.”

Between 2020 and 2024, confidence in the judicial system in the United
States dropped 24 percentage points, to 35 percent from 59 percent.

“This was a striking decline in the context of global attitudes,”
said Lydia Saad, the director of U.S. social research at Gallup.
“These drops are typically associated with pretty significant
political upheavals.”

Only nine nations of the more than 160 surveyed in the past two
decades have had sharper drops over any four-year period. They include
a 46-point decline in Myanmar as it returned to military rule, a
35-point drop in Venezuela as it faced economic and political turmoil
and a 28-point decline in Syria in the early phases of its civil war.

Public confidence in the judiciaries of other developed nations has
remained stable. Among the 38 members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, median confidence in national judiciaries
stood at 55 percent, a number that has been essentially constant over
the past decade.

The 20-point gap between the United States and its peers is the
largest since Gallup started its global poll in 2006. The 35 percent
confidence rate for U.S. courts is the lowest in the history of the
survey.

In 2023, the last year in which reasonably comprehensive global data
were available, the United States was in 92nd place in a ranking of
nations by public confidence in their judiciaries, at 42 percent. Five
countries had confidence levels of 85 percent or more: Kuwait,
Singapore, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland.

Since then, confidence in the American judiciary has dropped another
seven points. When 2024 data are available, the United States’
global ranking “will certainly be lower,” Ms. Saad said.

The Gallup poll is not focused on the Supreme Court but on the
judiciary as a whole.

Many polls have found steep drops in public approval of the Supreme
Court after its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.
But there was a partisan split in those results, with Democrats
responsible for most of the decline.

By contrast, the new poll found bipartisan dissatisfaction with the
American justice system as a whole. “Both parties have lost
confidence in the courts,” Ms. Saad said, “but maybe for different
reasons.”

“When we ask Republicans about the Supreme Court, they’re still
very positive,” Ms. Saad added. “When you don’t pin them down on
the Supreme Court and talk about the courts, they’re saying the
courts are misbehaving and engaging in quote-unquote lawfare.”

Professor Ginsburg said the poll showed something new. “In contrast
with earlier eras,” he added, “one side’s disapproval is not
offset by approval from the other side, but we seem instead to be
seeing an overall erosion of institutional confidence.”

Gallup’s global poll does not track party affiliations as such, but
it does ask whether respondents approve of “the leadership of this
country.”

In the four years of the Biden administration, Americans who
disapproved of the nation’s leadership — mostly Republicans,
presumably — steadily lost faith in its judiciary, dropping to 29
percent from 46 percent. More strikingly, support for the judiciary
among those who approved of the nation’s leadership — Democrats,
mainly — was quite steady in the first three years of the
administration, at around 62 percent. But it plunged in 2024, to 44
percent.

“This year marks the first time on record that judicial confidence
among those approving of U.S. leadership has ever dipped below 60
percent,” the Gallup report said, “and the first time that
confidence in the courts has been below 50 percent among both those
who approve and those who disapprove of U.S. leadership, a double
whammy pushing the national figure to its lowest in two decades.”

Ms. Saad said confidence levels may yet rise. “We can expect that
Republicans’ attitudes are going to change markedly next year when
this is measured,” she said. “So what we’re picking up is a
moment in time that isn’t necessarily destiny.”

For now, though, the new poll is a warning that the nation is in a
perilous spot, Professor Ginsburg said.

“This is dangerous,” he said, “because, when public confidence
is low, the judiciary is subject to frontal attacks. We’ve just seen
Mexico pass a sweeping judicial overhaul that most of us believe will
undermine the quality of adjudication. In other countries, high courts
have been restructured by leaders who want to force through their pet
projects or remain in power after their terms are over.”

“The results,” he said, “are very worrying.”

_Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on
legal developments, for The New York Times._

 

* Courts
[[link removed]]
* Poor polling
[[link removed]]
* Imminent Danger
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]