The federal courts are full of judges who could retire but won’t. Little can be done about it.

WASHINGTON — At the age of 97, Judge Pauline Newman is the oldest full-time federal judge on the bench, but despite concerns about her ability to do the job, her colleagues are struggling to get rid of her.

For more than a year, she has been locked in a legal battle with her fellow judges on the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who have tried to pressure her to step aside. Newman fought back and is still contesting a decision that bars her from hearing cases.

Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 to the court that among other things handles appeals in complex patent cases, Newman was sanctioned after she refused to take a neurological test as part of a judicial disability investigation.

“It’s been devastating to me,” Newman said in an interview with NBC News. “It is as if my entire lifetime, a good deal of which has been devoted to this business, is of no meaning.”

When Democrats decided after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance that he was no longer fit to serve at the top of the ticket, a multifaceted pressure campaign was able to convince him to step aside.

But federal judges, as well as Supreme Court justices, have lifetime appointments and there is no easy process for easing them aside.

With people generally living longer, a lifetime appointment can now last many decades. The average age of a federal judge is 69, according to a recent study, and there is no clean way to force someone to step down.

“That’s a feature, not a bug,” said Greg Dolin, a former Newman law clerk who is now working as her lawyer. “There’s no way to get rid of a judge, but I don’t think that’s something to amend. That’s something to celebrate.”

On the other hand, some judges have no