Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she’s worried about declining standards and broken norms

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal on the Supreme Court, advocated for a “fearlessly independent” judiciary during remarks Friday, telling an audience in Washington that she is worried about “standards that are being changed.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal on the Supreme Court, advocated for a “fearlessly independent” judiciary during remarks Friday, telling an audience in Washington that she is worried about “standards that are being changed.” “One of the things that’s troubling so many right now is many of the standards that are being changed … were norms that governed officials into what was right and wrong,” Sotomayor told an audience at Georgetown University. “Once norms are broken then you’re shaking some of the foundation of the rule of law,” she added. Sotomayor did not directly mention President Donald Trump, who along with his allies have flirted with defying court orders that have temporarily blocked him from enforcing some of his executive actions. But Sotomayor, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2009, was clear that she was speaking about current events. “The fact that some of our public leaders are lawyers advocating or making statements challenging the rule of law tells me that fundamentally our law schools are failing,” she said. “Once we lose our common norms, we’ve lost the religion of law completely,” she said.