Ketanji Brown Jackson criticises Supreme Court's emergency docket handling

US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has sharply criticised her colleagues’ handling of the court’s emergency docket, warning that its routine use to clear the way for Trump administration policies risks weakening public trust in the judiciary.

Speaking on Thursday at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law, Jackson said the court’s heavy reliance on emergency-docket orders gives the federal government unfair access to the justices’ time and attention, and is disrespectful to the careful work of trial judges.

“We cannot expect the public to have faith in our judicial system if, without clear explanation, we are consistently green-lighting harmful acts that do real damage to litigating plaintiffs,” she said.

She questioned why one party should get a “fast pass” to the Supreme Court when so many other parties wait patiently for its attention, adding that some frequent emergency-docket filers have the court on “speed dial” — an echo of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent last year when the conservative majority backed the administration in a dispute over deporting eight migrants to South Sudan.

Jackson, one of the court’s three liberal justices, called for a return to “first principles” and greater restraint in intervening in politically charged cases. The Justice Department has routinely used the emergency docket — also known as the shadow docket — to ask the justices to stay lower-court rulings blocking contentious policies. Such requests are typically decided without oral arguments, and the court rarely explains how individual justices voted.