President 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 healthcare reforms.
Mr Obama 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 noted that 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 the President of ignoring 200 years of US legal precedent despite having been a constitutional law professor before entering politics.
Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina – one of 27 states suing the administration over "Obamacare"– accused him of "bullying the Supreme Court".
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said that Mr Obama had "crossed a dangerous line" with his comments, adding: "I would suggest the president back off."
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.
Mr Obama's Justice Department was forced on 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, Mr Obama's attorney general, was compelled to issue a statement confirming that the administration "respect the decisions made by the courts since Marbury v. Madison," a landmark 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 that Mr 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, told an interview: "Presidents should generally refrain from commenting on pending cases".
Some legal experts compared Mr Obama's move to President Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 assault on the Supreme Court after it rejected several components of the New Deal, 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".
Prof. Presser said the statement may have been a "pre-emptive strike".
While Mr Obama claims to be "confident" the Court will uphold the law, many Supreme Court 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, Mr Obama's spokesman, said the president's comments were "the reverse of intimidation". The President himself pulled back from his original statement during a later speech in Washington.
"The Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it," Mr 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 "unprecedented" only to overturn a law with such economic magnitude. Justin Driver, a University of Texas law professor who clerked for two Supreme Court justices, described his argument as "credible".
"It affects so many millions of people, healthcare is such a large sector of the American economy and this is an enormous piece of legislation," said Prof. Driver. "I think he is correct in that regard."
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