PRESIDENT Donald Trump has announced that Judge Neil Gorsuch is his nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States – or “Scotus”, as it is known.

Trump made the announcement live and flashily on primetime TV on Monday, a complete departure from tradition – but then everything about the Trump presidency seems to be a departure from the norm.

WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?

THE Supreme Court of the US is the nation’s top federal court, and Americans have no higher court of appeal, unlike the UK (at present) where cases can be taken to the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights.

There is normally a Chief Justice and eight associate justices who are nominated by the president but must have their elevation to Scotus confirmed by the Senate. Justices are appointed for life, and they spend their time adjudicating on issues involving appeals on federal cases and cases which involve federal law referred from the courts of the 50 states.

One of the ways in which a president can really wield serious influence on the US is to change the balance of political philosophy on Scotus.

Trump pledged to appoint a “conservative” judge to replace the late Antonin Scalia who died almost a year ago after nearly 30 years as a justice. Gorsuch fits Trump’s bill apparently, and if confirmed by the Senate he will replace Scalia as a “conservative” justice, maintaining the current balance of four supposedly “liberal” judges and four “conservatives” with Justice Anthony Kennedy, described as a “moderate conservative”, often holding the decisive vote.

Two of the justices are now in their 80s, and if any should pass away or retire, Trump could alter the court’s balance for decades.

SO WHO IS THE NEW GUY?

NEIL Gorsuch is both a Westerner – he hails from Colorado – and an insider in the Washington “system” that Trump so despises. At 49, if confirmed by the Senate he will be the youngest justice for years to be appointed.

Born in Denver, Colorado, in 1967, he is the son of Anne Gorsuch Burford, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency but was forced to resign in 1983 over the waste dump mismanagement scandal.

Neil Gorsuch moved to Washington as a youngster and had a classic legal “insider” education – Georgetown Prep, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He later gained a doctorate in legal philosophy from Oxford University.

His career saw him clerking for two Supreme Court judges followed by private practice and a stint as deputy associate Attorney General for the Department of Justice.

He was appointed a federal judge in Colorado in the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit by President George W Bush in 2006.

He is a lover of the great outdoors, and has a small ranch in Boulder County where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

IS HE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE JOB?

TRUMP said: “Judge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline and has earned bipartisan support. It is an extraordinary résumé — as good as it gets.”

Gorsuch is known for the excellence of his writing of legal opinions, and has written extensively on such subjects as euthanasia and assisted suicide, which he opposes.

Going by his judgements in various cases over the years, Gorsuch is indeed a “conservative” who believes in “originalism”, namely that the US Constitution and amendments should be interpreted in exactly the way they were written.

He has ruled in favour of religious freedom and once wrote that the law “does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nation’s long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance”.

How that sits with Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric we don’t yet know.

IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH HIS NOMINATION?

INDEED there is. His nomination has to be approved by about 60 senators, and the Republicans only hold 52 senate seats. He is only able to be nominated because the Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for most of 2016 so that Garland was unable to take the Scotus seat. Now the Democrats are threatening to do the same to Gorsuch. The congressional hearings into his confirmation start on Tuesday.