Supreme Court After Turkey

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From Supreme Court to the voting booth. Two sides of Roe vs Wade. 
Voters took the matter to the 2022 U.S. Mid Term Election. Photo credit: online image. 

Too much food in December so we lie down to let it rest a bit. We could change the habit I guess. Instead of pressing Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts, we could read some opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are all kinds of cases before it. When individuals, states, religious organizations etc. are unhappy about something, they seek the opinion of the Court, which has are nine judges. Oops! They are called Justices. Fancy legal term inni’t?

There’s no need to read them, you say. Yahoo, CTV or BBC will give us the Court’s decision. Not all of it, because some justices may say yes to the case on the table, others no. Take Roe Vs Wade for example, which is about a woman’s choice about her body and society’s perceived right to dictate to her.

Five justices over turned Roe vs. Wade, 4 justices said it should stay. News outlets and blogs covered the opinion widely, but we know little about the opinion of the 4 dissenting judges.

We can’t blame court reporters because they can spend the whole day in court, then file their reports. News Directors have - let’s say - two minutes allocated for a specific topic. That’s why what dissenting Justices say, doesn’t get air time.

This Christmas, we can skip Tik Tok and YouTube, pick a random topic from previous cases and read dissenting opinions. That will be fun for Jack and Jill the twins, who are going to law school next year. I first got a taste of Supreme Court decisions at Columbia University J. School. You want to be a journalist? You must know the law.

What’s for dessert?

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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