Gliszczyńska-Grabias Aleksandra, Sadurski Wojciech, A Recent Decision of the US Supreme Court on Legal Discrimination in the Access to Voting Rights: Five Readings of Shelby County

It is a commonplace that the abolition of all formal forms of racial discrimination in the United States has not led to the eradication of various vestiges of discrimination, usually indirect, in the law. An important sphere of traditional discrimination concerns voting rights – arguably the key aspect of civic self-determination in a democracy. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 was aimed at making it illegal to enact any indirect measures of discrimination against African-Americans, in particular through various tests, such as literacy or property tests, which in effect adversely impact on racial minorities, traditionally disadvantaged in access to the goods and benefits which figured as criteria in such tests. Nevertheless it was not the end of the problem as local authorities at the state and sub-state level, especially in the Southern states, have been...