The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Donald Trump’s appeal of a judicial decision barring the former US president from Colorado’s Republican primary ballot, taking up a politically explosive case with major implications for the 2024 presidential election.

At issue is the Colorado Supreme Court’s December 19 ruling disqualifying Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot based on language in the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment for engaging in insurrection, involving the January 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the US Capitol.

The justices made their decision to hear the case with unusual speed.

Trump, the frontrunner for his party’s nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election, filed his appeal on Wednesday. The state Republican Party on December 27 also appealed the ruling.

The state court, acting in a challenge to Trump by Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado, found Trump ineligible for the presidency under a constitutional provision that bars anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office, and therefore barred him from appearing on the primary ballot.

The Colorado case thrusts the Supreme Court – whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump – into the unprecedented and politically fraught effort to invalidate Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House.

Many Republicans have decried the disqualification as election interference, while proponents of disqualification have said holding Trump constitutionally accountable for an insurrection supports democratic values.

Trump already faces criminal charges in two cases related to his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

-AAP