Should Supreme Court Justices Serve for a Lifetime?

The Constitution states that those who serve on the Supreme Court are to be appointed by the President and serve for a lifetime. The position of Supreme Court Justice is the only position mentioned in the Constitution with a lifelong term. Also, they are not elected by the people –they are appointed by the current President whenever an opening occurs. Some believe that the Supreme Court Justices should not be allowed to serve for a lifetime because it could lead to an abuse of power. However, others believe that life terms give immunity to Justices against political pressures.

Citing the fact that, “nearly every other country in the world” subjects their high justices to limited terms or mandatory age requirements, the Washington Post suggests that term limits for Supreme Court Justices are long overdue. Instead, the article proposes an 18-year term limit which would be, according to Law professor Erwin Chemerinksky, “long enough to allow a justice to master the job, but not so long as to risk creating a court that reflects political choices from decades earlier.” Furthermore, when the Constitution was written, life tenure meant living to one’s 50’s. Also, it is scientifically proven that people are much more mentally sharp in their 40’s, 50s, and 60s. With a life term, Justices can and have served until the day they died.

A life term also decreases accountability – with no fear of being fired, Justices are free to make decisions that are not necessarily in line with what the majority of Americans want. However, some argue that accountability is not really a factor. Rather, what is most important is that life terms create no accountability, or desire to adhere to political pressures. Justices are free to act in whatever way they see fit in order to serve the Constitution because they are unafraid of political backlash.

In 2015, two-thirds of American supported a 10-year terms limit on Supreme Court justices, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll – only 17% supported the life tenure. With such a marginally low rate of acceptable among Americans, it seems that the right decision would be to implement term limits on the Supreme Court.

I believe that something like an 18-year, staggered term limit would serve this purpose as well. Furthermore, an 18 year, staggered term limit would not allow for a Justice to choose to retire at a certain point in order to ensure the appointment of a judge with a similar ideology. For example, with a life term, a conservative justice could wait until a conservative president was in office in order to increase the likelihood that another conservative justice would be appointed. With a term limit, a Justice couldn’t make this decision.

The main reason that a change in term limit hasn’t happened is because this change would require a new Constitutional amendment, which is historically very difficult to accomplish. In the future, a change may be made — it will probably take a major detrimental event in order to call for a Constitutional amendment. However, for now, life terms for the Supreme Court Justices will continue for the foreseeable future.