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Wearing a suit is a sign of respect to the court, and there's a rational justification for the convention. Courts, you see, and federal courts in particular, don't really have any power. They have a few marshals, but by and large they're not directly in charge of the people with the guns. Courts have power only because everyone agrees to abide by their authority. Wearing a suit, standing when a judge enters the room, addressing the judge as "your Honor," is all part of a ritual where we acknowledge the solemnity of the proceeding and collectively reinforce the binding authority of the court and its judgments. The details of the ritual are, of course, arbitrary. What matters is that everyone partakes in the ritual. The practical significance is this: if the judge rules against the government in this case, the executive branch will have a choice to follow the order or not. It is indeed a choice--the executive branch has all the guns, after all. The price of ignoring the order is a loss of moral authority and public support. The purpose of the ritual surrounding the proceedings is to make this expensive. You want people to be offended and feel violated that anyone would ignore authority that they collectively sanctioned by engaging in this ritual. |
Frankly speaking, I don't think that a whole generation (or several) of people wearing t-shirts in court is going to do much to change the judiciary's ability to reign in the executive. If current practice is any indication, the executive will flout judicial decisions just as it already does with legislative ones: behind closed doors and with "creative" interpretations of said decisions.