Trump’s assault on the rule of law

The US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v United States in 2024 opened the stage for Donald Trump to act unilaterally. Post-inauguration he has been using executive orders to roll back rights to trans people, attempt to end birthright citizenship, and implement a hard right agenda across the US government attacking “woke ideology”. Judges have pushed back against this agenda, including a 14th February pausing of the removal of birthright citizenship. Trump, Elon Musk, and J D Vance have all taken to social media to decry judicial oversight of the executive branch, calling into question the foundations of the US’s legal system and the already shaky rule of law that has been under threat since the introduction of the PATRIOT Act in 2001.

There is no one agreed understanding of what a rule of law should look like, though ideally it should cover legality, legal certainty, equality before the law, protection for fundamental rights, judicial independence and access to justice. Each of these has been eroded over the last twenty years due to the Federal judicial system become ever more partisan and political. Now it is protection of fundamental rights which is being stripped back by fiat, with judges and civil servants bending over backwards to comply. Judicial independence being called into question is the next step to remove judicial freedom, especially as US judges are subject to…