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A pioneering women’s rights attorney before joining the court in 1993, Ginsburg emerged as an unlikely pop icon in recent years.
FILE: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery to remove two cancerous nodules from her left lung. US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at the annual Women’s History Month reception hosted by Pelosi at the US Capitol Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC Photo : AFP
WASHINGTON (AP) – US Supreme Court Justice and liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday, opening a crucial high court vacancy that is expected to spark a political battle pitched at the peak of the presidential campaign.
Affectionately known as the Notorious RBG, Ginsburg, 87, was the oldest of the nine Supreme Court justices.
She died after a fight with pancreatic cancer, the court announced, saying she passed away “surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, DC.”
Coming just 46 days before an election in which President Donald Trump trails his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls, the vacancy offers the Republican a chance to secure a conservative majority in court for decades to come.
Trump, who was informed of Ginsburg’s passing while on the campaign trail, issued a statement praising her as a “titan of the law,” but gave no indication whether he intended to go ahead with a nomination.
The accolades flowed to pioneering Jewish justice.
“Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama said in a tweet that Ginsburg “fought to the end, through his cancer, with an unshakable faith in our democracy and its ideals.”
Joe Biden said he was “an American hero, a giant of legal doctrine and a relentless voice in the pursuit of that highest American ideal: Equal justice under the law.”
Former President Jimmy Carter called her “a beacon of justice,” while Hillary Clinton thanked her for paving the way for “so many women.”
In Washington, hundreds of mourners flocked to lay flowers and light candles in front of the Supreme Court, where diminutive Ginsburg sat for 27 years, even receiving arguments and speaking out from her hospital bed after repeated bouts of illness over the past few years. two years. .
Ginsburg anchored the liberal faction of the court, reduced to four by two Trump appointments since 2017.
The appointment of a sixth conservative judge could lead to a court that would potentially eliminate abortion rights, strengthen the powers of business and dilute the rights granted to minorities and the LGBTQ community over the past three decades.
Within minutes of the news of his death, the huge political battle had begun, with Biden warning that Trump had no right to name a successor so close to the Nov.3 election.
Democrats are expected to fight hard to force a delay, an uphill battle given the control Republicans have over the Senate, which must approve any nominee.
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