May I dissent from your argument that the “Supreme Court has weakened legal predictability in the US”? (FT View, July 12).

I suggest the opposite is true. This term’s decisions show the Supreme Court’s fealty to the plain language of the constitution, a resurrection of the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government, and an overdue boost to the power of voters in our republican democracy. That power includes the right to decide whether and to what extent the termination of a pregnancy should be allowed (a right exercised throughout the UK and EU) and the extent to which environmental laws can be mobilised to destroy the fossil fuel industry.

A court that finds new rights in the penumbras or emanations of the constitution, and is consequently subject to the whims of popular opinion, is less predictable than one that gives the words in the constitution their plain meaning.

And while industries that have captured the administrative state may not welcome its dismantling, the rule of law is strengthened and not weakened when the power of an unelected bureaucracy to make law is limited by plain, direct and unambiguous congressional statutes.

Michael J Bond
Mercer Island, WA, US

Letter in response to this letter:

Dissenting view on power of the Supreme Court / From Andrew Dean, Paris, France