” Judge Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed to the Supreme Court – President Donald Trump’s Third Win ” – October 26, 2020.

President Donald Trump scored a “hat-trick” with the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the 115th Justice to Supreme Court tonight, Monday, October 26, 2020. President nominated her to Supreme Court on September 26, 2020, to replace late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020.

This is one of the quickest nomination proceedings culminating in confirmation in modern times in its 231 year history.

Figure below succinctly represents the character triad exceeding credibility enabling Judge Amy Coney Barrett in getting confirmed to this highly prestigious position :

The three characteristics are : (a) Education and Experience ; (b) Judicial Reasoning Ability ; and (c) Courage and Integrity.

(a) Education and Experience : Judge Amy Coney Barrett possesses the excellent combination of academics and practice in her career with teaching and publications as Professor in Legal Education, plus Court practice with litigation/family law experience in the appellate court that cannot be ignored by anyone at the highest level. Her knowledge and interest in legal education and ability to remain fully equipped with current practices are equally well known. Her positive recognition within the worksysyem or outside in the community has been impeccable.

(b) Judicial Reasoning Ability : Her conduct during her career of maintaining a standard above what is required was in no doubt either. Even the Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein praised her during the confirmation process. Judge Amy Coney Barrett was open-minded, patient, and firm in her answers during the confirmation process. Add to this, her general characteristics of humility, commonsense, and compassion, the Court gets a Justice who has manifested these qualities in her academic role and profession in the past. None has questioned her Intelligence and ability to possess and apply legal rules or her ability to understand new concepts and ideas. Her respect for the Congress as the pillar of legislature vouch for this, as she had emphasized many times during the confirmation process.

(c) Courage and Integrity : Judge Amy Coney Barrett displayed positive forbearance amidst provocation during the Senate Confirmation without being offensive while remaining sensitive to the issues on which she was probed. While abiding by the tenet of Originalism, she seemed to insist on her course of actions that she would follow as an Associate Justice always following what the laws would require her to do even if it is not popular. She also averred many times in the course of the process of confirmation that she will strive to maintain integrity without being influenced by identity, status, and relationships – individual or Political.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has now been confirmed as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. That she will be able to deliver active, effective, and impartial service to the public through her support for decisions for years into the future is the HOPE of every Citizen now.

As a common man with little knowledge of the subject, I write the following as I see and feel :

A special swearing in took place at the White House tonight with Justice Clarence Thomas administering the constitutional oath to Amy Coney Barrett. President, Donald Trump, spoke for a few minutes introducing both.

In today’s COVID-19 environment, any act will receive criticisms and counterviews for crowded settings or gatherings without mandated testing, wearing masks, maintaining social distance, no handshaking, and the number being less than 20 to 50. This event, nevertheless, took place while adhering to the norms with earnest. Some points here in this respect :

1. While House may have been constrained by the Public Health Measures. It must also be remembered here that this is not some act according to whims and fancies, but a regular and justifiable event in recognition of the success of the candidate at the highest level in the Supreme Court who will shoulder the responsibility with honesty, integrity, and sincerity.

2. There are restrictions placed on such events, but this is an exceptional event in the nature of “customer service”, a service to the Citizens of America here in this case.

3. Restrictions do exist, everyone agrees ; but exceptions also exist. At best, it serves as a test to the Public Health Impact to which there is no standard formulated yet – that an event of, say, a thousand persons should not have more than, say, ten numbers of infections or so.

4. Best is not to let anyone infected. But, best case scenarios are mostly non-practical and non-existent. An argument could be that the congregation should not have more than 20 persons, even to which there is no guarantee that none will be infected. Say, for example, one case in twenty is an acceptable limit – the least that one can say as a standard ; it means that in a gathering/congregation of 1000, about 50 infections are acceptable ; whether advancing such a linear scale increase in expectations are right or not is a matter to be debated.

5. So, the ideal act is not to hold a celebration of this nature at all. And hence, a symbolic swearing-in with just the Candidate, President, Chief of Swearing-in ceremony, with just a few ( five to ten) persons, would seem proper to many. But, recognising the nature of importance of this event, the congregation assembled with full observance of stringent Public Health Measures this time has to be considered as perfectly in order.

Conclusion :

Take the case of accidents and deaths. I want to draw a parallel in this context. Elimination of accidents is not possible ; at best minimisation of victims is the guide rule in Prevention of accidents. Even in accidents we say (as Safety expert Heinrich put it) that 88% of accidents occur due to Unsafe Acts ; 10% of accidents occur due to Unsafe Conditions ; and the remaining 1 or 2 % is left to God. Elimination of infections at this juncture is not possible. Not holding the event is also not in good spirits. Let the act of God prevail, if there are any infectious cases, is the hope here.

If the September 29, 2020, event in the White House – announcement of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court – earned the moniker, “Super Spreader” signifying multiple spreading of the infected cases, the present event of October 26, 2020, – Constitutional Oath taking Ceremony – be christened “Cipher” with no spreading of infected cases. This is the moment of God.

” Dieu avec nous “

Tuesday, October 27, 2020 – 8.15 a.m. ( IST )

Tidbit : ” It is not the oath that makes us believe the person, but the person the oath ” – Aeschylus.