John G. Roberts Jr became the US Supreme Court's youngest chief justice in two centuries by winning support from more than three-quarters of the Senate, including half the 44 opposition Democrats.

Aged 50, Roberts becomes the 17th chief justice of the United States to preside over a Supreme Court that seems as divided as the nation over abortion and other tumultuous social issues. The court's new term opens on Monday.

"The Senate has confirmed a man with an astute mind and kind heart," US President George W. Bush said just before Roberts was sworn in by acting Chief Justice John Paul Stevens. Roberts "will be prudent in exercising judicial power, firm in defending judicial independence and above all a faithful guardian of the Constitution," he said.

Bush is expected to make his second Supreme Court nomination within days, one that conservatives hope will move the court to the right. Replacing the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist with Roberts keeps the court's current balance, since both are conservatives like Bush, but replacing the moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a conservative could tilt it rightward.

Roberts called the Senate's 78-22 bipartisan vote for him "confirmation of what is for me a bedrock principle, that judging is different from politics." All the Senate's 55 Republicans, independent James Jeffords of Vermont and 22 Democrats supported him.

He said he would try to "pass on to my children's generation a charter of self-government as strong and as vibrant as the one that Chief Justice Rehnquist passed on to us."

Rehnquist, for whom Roberts was a clerk in the early 1980s, died on September 3 at age 80. Roberts replaces him five years older than the youngest chief justice, John Marshall, who took over at age 45 when he was confirmed in 1801.

Source: China Daily