By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters)
Presidents have got power and influence and some kind of control. However, institutions like the Supreme Court should not lose their independence if their rules and regulations are jeopardised and causing the lives of workers to be jeopardised or treated unfairly as well. However, from the looks of it, something might change real soon. U.S. President Donald Trump has done something that is against the law, to a certain extent, but now it looks like all is being overlooked and brushed away. How then can people feel safe in the nation?
Three members of the government’s top consumer product safety watchdog have been removed
The U.S. Supreme Court let Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday remove three Democratic members of the government’s top consumer product safety watchdog, boosting his power over federal agencies set up by Congress to be independent from presidential control. Granting a Justice Department request, the justices lifted Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox’s order.
An order that had blocked Trump from dismissing three Consumer Product Safety Commission members appointed by former Democratic President Joe Biden, while a legal challenge to their removal proceeds. Maddox had ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in firing Commissioners Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is no longer independent
This federal agency is called the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and it was put in place to protect consumers and the products that they purchase. This can be food, homeware, or as small as children’s toys. The goal is just to ensure consumers are protected and are informed openly about harmful products, and so forth. The CPSC has the power to stop companies if something goes wrong or to issue fines as well.
However, having said that, while the agency has been an independent organisation, that is not the case anymore. Prior to today, the president did not have the right to just fire or retrench their commissioners without a valid reason. Instead, commissioners are there to do their job and ensure that the general public is being served and kept safe.
The Supreme Court confirmed that the president has the power to dismiss
The Supreme Court, in a brief, unsigned order, indicated that the Trump administration was likely to show that the president is authorised by the U.S. Constitution to remove Consumer Product Safety Commission members. It was the latest in a series of legal victories for Trump in which the Supreme Court halted lower court rulings that had blocked his actions.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was created by Congress in 1972 and tasked with reducing the risk to consumers of injury or death from defective or harmful products. The agency sets safety standards, conducts product-safety investigations, and issues recalls of hazardous products. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Its three liberal members dissented on Wednesday. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that,
“The court had again used its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress.”
The Supreme Court has sided with Donald Trump. This raises a lot of questions regarding the rules that hold the state and the various sectors of the state. If it is so easy to just let go of a rule that has operated for centuries, because one president feels like it is possible. Then what more for a regular individual who might have done something forgivable? Does that mean he or she will not even be given a chance to express themselves? Or does it mean all the rules in the United States change whenever the president feels like this is what he wants?