US Justice Alito says he is aware of ‘real world’ impact of Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, Sep 27 (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, author of a blockbuster ruling that struck down abortion rights nationwide, said on Tuesday that his Catholic faith should be criticized for his decisions on the nation’s highest court. Real world implications need to be considered. ,

Speaking to a sympathetic audience shortly before the court’s next term begins, the conservative justice did not discuss the abortion ruling or other landmark rulings on guns and federal power issued earlier this year.

Asked how his personal beliefs affect his work, Alito said judges can influence people “indirectly but sometimes very powerfully” through their decisions.

“It is important to note that these decisions are not abstract discussions – they have a real impact on the world,” he said at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Alito said that his belief is “the way you treat everyone you work with when you’re serving as a judge.”

Alito has emerged as a leading voice of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, which last year issued a string of blockbuster decisions that pushed US law to the right.

In the next term, which begins in October, the strength of the majority may continue in several major cases.

Alito wrote the landmark ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion. Since then, many states have banned the process outright or sharply limited it.

Alito spoke at the opening lecture of a new program at Catholic University of America’s Law School called the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. The school said earlier this year that Alito would be the honorary chairman for the program’s advisory board.

Alito focused his comments on Catholic intellectual tradition and law, clarifying the thorny remarks that have marked some of his other public appearances.

In July, he mocked foreign leaders objecting to the court’s abortion decision, while in 2020 he said religious freedom was becoming a “partisan right”.

Opinion polls have shown a decline in public acceptance of the court in the wake of that abortion decision.

Reporting by Jacqueline Thomson; Written by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Stephen Coates

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