Obama accused of bullying' US SC over healthcare reforms

Barack Obama has come under fire from senior Republicans, courts and legal scholars for bullying the US Supreme Court by warning it against overturning his controversial health care reforms.

The president said earlier this week that the court would be taking an"unprecedented, extraordinary step if it struck down the law, which forces all Americans to buy private health insurance or face fines.

He said its unelected justices, whose sceptical questioning during hearings last week led experts to predict the law was doomed, would be rejecting the will of a democratically elected Congress.

The remarks prompted sharp responses from critics, who accused Obama, a constitutional law professor, of ignoring 200 years of legal precedent.

Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, one of 27 states suing the administration over ObamaCare, accused him of bullying the Supreme Court. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said, "The court is doing the job they were put in place to do."

The law's opponents argue that it is unconstitutional for the government to force people to buy things. The court is weighing this against the administration's claim that it is legal under the Constitution's commerce clause, which allows Congress to regulate interstate trade.

The Justice Department was forced yesterday (Thursday) to submit a letter to a Texas judge in a separate ObamaCare lawsuit, who demanded to know whether the president accepted that courts had authority to overturn laws that they found to be unconstitutional.

Eric Holder, the attorney general, confirmed that the administration "respects the decisions made by the courts since Marbury v Madison, an 1803 case establishing the principle of judicial review. "Courts have final say," said Mr Holder.

Randy Barnett, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, said Obama's remarks were a "gross mischaracterisation of the relationship of the courts to Congress." He told The Daily Telegraph, "There really wasn't anything in that statement that was accurate."

Even Laurence Tribe, a professor close to the president who mentored him at Harvard Law School, said, "Presidents should generally refrain from commenting on pending cases."

Some legal experts compared Obama's move to President Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 assault on the Supreme Court after it rejected several components of his programme to bolster America's recovery from the Great Depression.

One, Stephen Presser, a professor of legal history at Northwestern University, described Mr Obama's comments as astonishing, adding: Apparently his grasp of constitutional law is slipping.

While Obama claims to be confident the court will uphold the law, many experts expect his signature legislative achievement to be left in tatters. Justice Anthony Kennedy, typically the swing vote between the Court's four conservatives and four liberals, appeared sceptical that it was legal.

Jay Carney, Obama's spokesperson, said the president's comments were the reverse of intimidation.

The president himself pulled back from his original statement during a later speech. "The Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it," Obama said. "But it's precisely because of that extraordinary power that the court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress."

His aides claimed that he meant it would be unprecedentedonly to overturn a law of such magnitude. Justin Driver, a University of Texas law professor, described this argument as credible.

"It affects so many millions of people, health care is such a large sector of the American economy and this is an enormous piece of legislation. I think he is correct in that regard," Prof Driver added.