The US Supreme Court was not always this partisan

Us non-Americans are perennially bemused at just how partisan and party-political the US Supreme Court system is.

The Canadian Supreme Court works very similarly to the US one in many ways, but it is not as politically partisan. Judges are appointed to the Court by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister, but the process is much more informal, and any legislative hearings related to the appointment are voluntary and not constitutionally mandated. And, interestingly enough, it is quite common for a liberal-leaning judge to be appointed by a conservative government, and vice versa. Thus, it is not uncommon for a Supreme Court judge to rule against the political party that appointed it, something that is almost unimaginable in today's American system. There is also a 75 year age limit on the Canadian Supreme Court judges, as opposed to the job-for-life system in the USA.

Similarly, the UK system is also much less partisan than the American one, and it too has an age limit (as does pretty much every European country). America seems to have a peculiarly lartisan top couurt

Interestingly, though, it wasn't always like that in the USA. It is only since 2010 that US Supreme Court judges have been a appointed in such a strictly party political way (although some would argue that it has been moving in that direction since the 1970s). For instance, a conservative judge was appointed by John F. Kennedy in 1962; a liberal justice was appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975; a liberal-leaning judge was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1990; etc. And, while there has always been dissent within the SCOTUS judges, it did not always coincide with party lines.