One day after a dozen Republican legislators signed on to proposed legislation to impeach Democratic justices on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor issued a statement calling their effort “an attack upon an independent judiciary.”

“As chief justice of Pennsylvania, I am very concerned by the reported filing of impeachment resolutions against justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania related to the court’s decision about congressional redistricting,” Saylor said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. “Threats of impeachment directed against justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government.”