美參議院將爲確認最高法院大法官人選聽證

The U.S. Senate is holding its first confirmation hearing Monday for Neil Gorsuch, the judge President Donald Trump has nominated to fill a long vacancy on the Supreme Court.

The court has been one short of its nine justices since Antonin Scalia died in February 2016. Former President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy, Judge Merrick Garland, never got a confirmation hearing by the Republican-led Senate.

Gorsuch and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are scheduled to give opening statements Monday. Gorsuch will then face questions Tuesday and Wednesday, and the hearings are due to end Thursday with comments from outsiders.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Democrats could attempt to block the Gorsuch nomination with a tactic known as the filibuster, which would require 60 votes to approve the new justice. However, it is not clear if they would do so, and Republicans could change Senate rules to require only a simple-majority vote for confirmation.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would restore the 5-4 conservative majority on the court that was in place before Scalia's death.

Gorsuch has been through the confirmation process before. In 2006, the Senate confirmed him to a seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Before that, he was a high-ranking official in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. He also spent time in the early 1990s as clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.美國參議院星期一將爲確認川普總統的最高法院大法官人選尼爾·戈薩奇舉行第一次聽證會。這個職位已經長期空缺。

自2016年2月安東寧・斯卡利亞去世以來，最高法院的9名大法官便空缺一名。前總統奧巴馬曾提名梅里克·加蘭法官填補空缺，但是共和黨人領導的參議院一直沒有召開確認聽證會。

戈薩奇和參議院司法委員會成員定於星期一進行開場陳述。之後戈薩奇將在週二和週三面臨提問，聽證會將於週四結束並徵求外部人士的意見。

共和黨在參議院中擁有52-48的多數席位。民主黨人可能會試圖以被稱爲“阻撓議程”的策略阻止戈薩奇提名，這就需要60票來批准新任大法官的確認。然而，不清楚民主黨人是否會這樣做，共和黨人也可以改變參議院的規則，只需要簡單多數的表決確認。

如果得到確認，戈薩奇的加入會恢復在斯卡利亞去世之前最高法院5比4的保守派多數。

戈薩奇在2006年曾經經歷過確認程序，當時參議院批准他爲美國第十巡迴上訴法院的法官。在此之前，他是布什總統的司法部高級官員。上世紀90年代初他還曾擔任最高法院法官安東尼·肯尼迪的書記員。