► Full reference: B. Obama, “Professor POTUS on the Senate and the Supreme Court”, conversation with students and faculty at the University of Chicago Law School, 7 April 2016, video posted by The Obama White House on 27 April 2016.
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► Summary: back in April 2016 at the University of Chicago Law School, where he had taught constitutional law, President Barack Obama, while the Republican-led Senate refused to consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, explains as a professor the constitutional role of the Senate in the appointment of judges: to give its advice and consent, which presupposes hearing the nominee. He stresses that a partisan paralysis of the procedure would bring political polarisation into the judiciary and ruin public confidence in the courts, a confidence that democracy cannot afford to lose.
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