Courts

Coach Joseph Kennedy shows off his prayer chops at the Supreme Court. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Since 1962 , the U.S. Supreme Court has maintained that in most circumstances, public-school-sponsored prayer activity violates the First Amendment language prohibiting an “establishment of religion.” But the “wall of separation” between church and state that used to be the essence of the Establishment Clause is crumbling. In Monday’s Kennedy v. Bremerton decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority chipped away at precedents policing school prayer and other government entanglements with religion and continued its efforts — led as usual by Justice Neil Gorsuch — to subordinate the Establishment Clause to the language in the First Amendment protecting “free speech” and the “free exercise” of religion.

Bremerton involved a part-time assistant football coach at a public school who was holding prayer sessions on the 50-yard line after games. Gorsuch’s majority opinion treated coach Joseph Kennedy as an unobtrusive believer who was quietly and privately practicing his religious faith and was sometimes voluntarily joined by players and others — the sort of nonofficial prayer activity the courts had approved in the past. But as Vox’s Ian Millhiser explains , Gorsuch grossly distorted the facts of the case to make it fit the desired outcome:

In the real case that was actually before the Supreme Court, Coach Kennedy incorporated “motivational” prayers into his coaching . Eventually, these prayers matured into public, after-game sessions, where both Kennedy’s players and players on the other team would kneel around Kennedy as he held up helmets from both teams and led students in prayer. …

Kennedy also went on a media tour , presenting himself as a coach who “ made a commitment with God ” to outlets ranging from local newspapers to Good Morning America …

At the next game following this tour, coaches, players, and members of the public mobbed the field when Kennedy knelt to pray. A federal appeals court described this mob as a “ stampede, ” and the school principal said that he “saw people fall” and that, due to the crush of people, the district was unable “to keep kids safe.” Members of the school’s marching band were knocked over by the crowds.

Kennedy’s showboating has continued after the suspension he was clearly inviting. But Gorsuch didn’t simply mischaracterize the facts of the case; he also misstated the relevant precedents, dismissing a test for Establishment Clause cases followed by the Court since 1971 (which holds that government can assist religion only if (1) the primary purpose of the assistance is secular, (2) the assistance neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and (3) there is no excessive entanglement between church and state) as having already been “abandoned.” As Justice Sonia Sotomayor forcefully responded in a dissent joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, that’s simply not true, and worse yet, Gorsuch replaced the three-part test with a very vague standard measuring government entanglement with religion in terms of “history and tradition.”

The net effect, said Sotomayor, is to empty the Establishment Clause of its power to restrain government-sponsored religious expression:

The Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause are equally integral in protecting religious freedom in our society. The first serves as “a promise from our government,” while the second erects a “backstop that disables our government from breaking it” and “start[ing] us down the path to the past, when [the right to free exercise] was routinely abridged …”

Today, the Court once again weakens the backstop. It elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all.

The vagueness of the Supreme Court’s new standard for measuring impermissible state-sponsored religious expression suggests that further damage to the wall separating church and state may be on the horizon. In a decision announced just a week ago , the Court’s same six conservatives went a long way toward not only allowing but compelling government subsidies for religious schools. They are in the process of reducing the Establishment Clause to a constitutional footnote rather than a guarantee that the United States would never limit religious liberty to those who go along with the beliefs and practices of a state regime.

A little more than a month after a leaked draft opinion suggested that the Supreme Court of the United States could overturn the historic 1973 Roe Vs Wade decision that made abortion a constitutional right, the worst nightmare of many American women came true Friday as the apex court actually struck down the ruling . The court overturned the landmark judgment by a 6-3 majority.

What Was Roe Vs Wade?

The 1973 Roe Vs Wade decision by the Supreme Court was called a landmark ruling as it legalised abortion across the US. The majority opinion had then found termination of pregnancy during the first three months an absolute right.

The name of the lawsuit was Roe Vs Wade.

The plaintiff in the case was Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old unmarried and unemployed Texas woman, and Jane Roe was actually a pseudonym. She was pregnant for the third time in 1969, and sought to have an abortion. The US Supreme Court ruling came in her favour in 1973, though she had by then delivered a baby girl who she later put up for adoption, according to an AP report.

Roe had sued Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, whose job was to enforce a state law that prohibited abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

In her petition, Roe had alleged that the Texas law was “unconstitutionally vague and violated her constitutionally protected right to personal privacy”, the AP report said. Her question before the apex court was: “Does the Constitution recognize a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?”

It did, found the 7-2 majority opinion delivered by Justice Harry Blackmun. The court, however, made it clear that the protection had to be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting the health of women and “the potentiality of human life”.

The SC also said a woman’s decision on abortion during the first three months of pregnancy must be left to her and her doctor.

In 1973, when the court ruling came, abortion was by and large legal in only four states, while 16 others allowed it under limited circumstances. There was a total ban on abortion in the remaining 30 states. The SC decision, however, nullified them because constitutional rights are superior to state laws in the country. The court, nevertheless, allowed states to impose certain regulations during the second trimester, and take steps to protect foetal life in the third.

In 1992, when Pennsylvania abortion laws were challenged in Blackmun’s court, it upheld the right to abortion, but made it easier for states to impose regulations, the AP report said.

Texas state has since banned most abortions after about six weeks.

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What Happens In The US Now?

As aniticipated after the draft was leaked, the overturning of ‘Roe Vs Wade’ leaves abortion laws entirely up to the states, since there is no federal law that protects the right to abortion in the US. Things could go back to pre-1973 status when abortions were totally prohibited. Conservative states will most likely bring back those restrictive laws.

According to an old report in The New York Times, with the ‘Roe’ protection cover blown, the number of legal abortions could fall by at least 14%. The report cited the figure quoting research based on a Texas study of the effects of the closures of abortion clinics between 2013 and 2016.

The Supreme Court Monday asked the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to consider either on Tuesday or within a week the plea of a man seeking a direction to exhume the body of his son, who was dubbed a terrorist and killed in an encounter in November 2021 and to permit the family to conduct last religious rites at the same graveyard.

A vacation bench of Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala also requested the high court consider the plea for the grant of compensation to Mohammad Latief Magrey for the death of his son Aamir Magrey.

The bench took note of the submission of senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for the father of the deceased, that now he does want to press for the first relief that the body be allowed to be exhumed for performing last religious rites at the family graveyard.

“Now I have taken the instruction. The single-judge bench order was that I would be handed over the body and I will be taking that to my own graveyard. That portion of the order I am not pressing anymore.

“Because, I am prepared to go the graveyard where he is buried and remains will be exhumed and re-entered and I will perform the religious rites myself there only…,” the senior lawyer said, adding that there were judgements which say that the right to perform last rites lies with the family members.

The bench said that as the matter was listed for hearing before the high court on Tuesday, it will request the court to hear and decide the plea of Mohammad Latief Magrey either tomorrow or within a week thereafter.

“The counsel for the petitioner, at the outset, states that he does not want to press for the first relief granted by the High Court for exhumation and handing over of the body remains of his deceased son…He, however, wants to perform the last rites as per the religious practices at the… graveyard where his son was buried,” the bench noted in its order.

The bench disposed of the appeal without expressing any opinion on the merits and asked the high court to permit the counsel to appear through video conferencing mode.

Earlier on June 24, another vacation bench had agreed to hear the plea seeking exhumation of the body for performing the last rites by the family.

Grover had said that a single-judge bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had allowed the exhuming of his son’s body but it was later stayed by a division bench.

He had said that his client has supported the Army all through his life, and the only need to exhume the body was to perform the last rites of his son Aamir Magrey, who was killed along with three others in the encounter.

On June 3, a division bench of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh stayed the single bench order for exhuming the body of Aamir Magrey and handing it to his family for last rites.

On May 27, the single judge bench had directed the Jammu and Kashmir authorities to make arrangements for exhuming the remains of the deceased from the Wadder Payeen graveyard in the presence of Latief Magrey.

The high court, however, had said if the body is “highly putrefied and is not in deliverable state or is likely to pose risk to public health and hygiene, the petitioner and his close relatives shall be allowed to perform last rites as per their tradition and religious beliefs in the … graveyard itself”.

In that situation, the state shall pay petitioner Mohammad Latief Magrey a compensation of Rs five lakh for deprivation of his right to have the dead body of his son and give him a decent burial as per the family traditions, religious obligations, and faith which the deceased professed when he was alive, the single judge bench order had said.

Bodies of two more civilians, Altaf Ahmad Bhat and Dr. Mudasir Gul, who was killed in the Hyderpora encounter, were exhumed and returned to the families following an outcry days after the gunfight.

Four people were killed in the encounter on the outskirts of Srinagar on November 15, 2021.

While the police said all of them were terrorists and buried their bodies in Kupawara in North Kashmir, the families of the victims said that they were innocent civilians.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, headed by Member of Parliament and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi, visited Visakhapatnam District Court on Thursday as part of the committee’s ongoing tour of courts across the nation to assess the ground realities of the judicial infrastructure.

The committee had a detailed discussion with Principal District Judge A. Hari Haranatha Sharma, and registrars of the High Court of AP and other judges.

The committee also attended a meeting organised by the Visakhapatnam Bar Association.

Bar Association president Vydyula Ravindra Prasad explained the prevailing state of infrastructure at Visakhapatnam District Court in particular and subordinate courts in general.

He appraised the committee on the delayed progress of construction of the new court complex.

Mr. Ravindra also requested the committee to look into the issues relating to the existing infrastructure including furniture and urged the committee to submit a report to the ministry concerned.

Responding to Mr. Ravindra’s plea, Mr. Modi said he would make the necessary suggestions to the government.

He also advised the advocate fraternity to adapt to new technology and also suggested that e-filing of cases be made the norm.

The meeting was attended by Secretary of the Bar Association Y. Venu Gopal and members of the Bar Council of A.P. and a number of advocates.

The others members of the committee, drawn from both houses of Parliament, included P. Wilson, Suresh Kumar Pujari, Kalaven Mohanbhai Delkar, Sandhya Ray, Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar, Pradip Kumar Chowdhary, Upendra Singh Rawat, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Veena Devi.

The US Supreme Court on Friday took the dramatic step of overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and legalized it nationwide, handing a momentous victory to Republicans and religious conservatives who want to limit or ban the procedure.