Ireland's opposition to Donald Trump requires real courage

IT IS not too difficult to imagine one of the many comedians whose careers have been energised since Donald Trump was elected presenting an Oval Office sketch suggesting that Mr Trump demanded that his advisors fire the “so-called judge” who blocked his travel ban. 

Mr Trump has, after all, sacked an acting attorney general because she had the temerity to question his diktat, one that ignored the primary sources of terrorist attacks on the west. That Sally Yates may be vindicated just adds to the tragic farce.

Showing a disconcerting comfort with the idea of government by fiat, America’s acting solicitor general, Noel Francisco, argued in a circuit court of appeals in San Francisco on Saturday that presidential authority is “largely immune from judicial control” when deciding who can enter or stay in America. The judge has asked for full arguments this afternoon so the issue remains undecided. However, that process, one that should be hermetically-sealed from political interference, is under a threat alien to the protection a democracy should afford its courts and its laws.