Washington (CNN) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the liberal minority on the Supreme Court but has a way of steering the debate on a case.

Ginsburg spoke to CNN in a rare interview in her chambers this week. The 86-year-old four-time cancer survivor has resumed an active role in oral arguments and is often the first of the nine justices to pose a question. She regularly asks whether the Supreme Court should even decide the legal issue before it.

By framing the debate in this way, Ginsburg could limit the five conservative justices from setting new precedent over the dissent of the court's four liberals

Ginsburg's approach goes back to her time in law school -- but her expertise and emphasis offers liberals a path forward when the balance of power on the court is now solidly conservative. Ginsburg has taken up the cause in multiple recent disputes regarding the 2nd Amendment, criminal sentencing and tax law.

In an interview late Tuesday, Ginsburg talked about the rules for getting through the courthouse doors. She would not discuss specifics of any pending case and sidestepped questions about strategy or the ideological stakes on this divided court.

She said that procedural concerns can stop judges from intervening prematurely but noted that procedural safeguards can also ensure that worthy litigants are not kept out of the courthouse.

"It's just instinctive to me," she said. "Procedure is supposed to serve the people that law exists to serve."

Last year at this time, Ginsburg was recovering from lung cancer surgery and missed several weeks at the court. She finished out the term in June. Soon after, she discovered a cancerous tumor on her pancreas, which was treated in August, and she resumed her active schedule.

Sounding energized and speaking animatedly, she told CNN on Tuesday that her year was off to a fine start: "I'm cancer free. That's good."

The justices are currently negotiating in their chambers how far to go in cases that have been argued and beginning next week will start a new round of oral arguments. Some of the fresh dilemmas will similarly raise procedural matters of who can sue and when, as well as how far the justices should run with a narrow lower court ruling.

Along with issues of immigration, reproduction rights and LGBTQ protections, the justices plan to review three disputes over President Donald Trump's tax returns and other financial records.

Ginsburg on Tuesday did not discuss specifics of any case before the justices and sidestepped questions about any new interest in procedure arising from the ideological stakes on the divided court. The subject, she said, has intrigued her since her law school days.

As a fire crackled in her chambers, Ginsburg, dressed in red slacks and a tan jacket, elaborated on her fascination. She read from a sheet of paper she brought to the interview containing a "favorite quote: from the 1943 case of McNabb v. US

"The history of liberty," wrote Justice Felix Frankfurter, "has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards."

A return to her past

The nitty-gritty of procedure that routinely concerns her is not what has brought Ginsburg public prominence in recent years. The women's rights advocate who inspired the "Notorious RBG" meme and carries an "I Dissent" tote bag typically speaks about equality in the law and her life experiences ( down to her exercise regime ) before enthusiastic campus crowds.

But civil procedure was her field in her early years as a lawyer. She said her interest was whetted by a first-year class at Harvard taught by the late eminent law professor Benjamin Kaplan. Many of her fellow students did not care for this field, she said.

"Tort, contract, property -- there was some familiarity with it," she said. "Procedure was this strange area."

But she was excited by civil procedure and made a point of volunteering in class as often as she could.

"Kaplan was a master of the Socratic method," she recounted. "He never used it to wound. He used it to make the class engaging."

Ginsburg transferred to Columbia University to be with her husband, Martin, who had been a student at Harvard Law, graduated a year earlier and gotten a job in New York City. But she retained her interest in civil procedure. After her graduation in 1959, she began teaching the subject and traveled to Sweden to study its civil procedures.

"Reading and observing another system made me understand my own system so much better," she said, vividly recalling her research in Sweden a half century ago.

Ginsburg's iconic status today has only been enhanced by her resilience in surviving four cancer ordeals since 1999. In the current session, she appears back with renewed vigor, especially on procedural questions -- an emphasis that is important for the court's left at the moment.

Last month, for instance, Paul Clement, the lawyer at the lectern challenging a New York City restriction on transporting firearms, was just two minutes into his argument when Ginsburg brushed past his rendition of 2nd Amendment history and focused on what mattered to her.

"The city has now been blocked by a state law," Ginsburg said. "The state says: City, thou shalt not enforce the regulations. So what's left of this case?"

Based on their records, the four liberals would likely protest any decision that favors the position voiced by Clement that "a transport ban is and always was unconstitutional" under the 2nd Amendment.

The early focus for Ginsburg was whether the dispute was moot and, thus, not fit for any high court resolution, let alone an expansion of the court's 2008 landmark decision that declared an individual right to possess guns at home. She said in the December hearing that, essentially, the rifle association had already won.

"The (challengers) have gotten all the relief that they sought," she argued. "They can carry a gun to a second home. They can carry it to a fire -- to a practice range out of state."

The challengers had wanted the still-pending case to lead to a rejection of transport rules nationally, not only in New York City. The justices have not ruled on the case.

Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Washington in 2013. She is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Hide Caption 1 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933. Here she is at 2 years old. Hide Caption 2 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg A photo of Ginsburg from her high school yearbook. Hide Caption 3 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, 13, sits immediately to the left of Rabbi Harry Halpern at the East Midwood Jewish Center, a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, in 1946. Hide Caption 4 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and her cousin Richard ski at a lodge in the Adirondacks circa 1946. Hide Caption 5 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg is the maid of honor at a cousin's wedding in 1951. Hide Caption 6 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg met her husband, Martin, while attending Cornell University, and both went on to study law. The couple were engaged in December 1953. Hide Caption 7 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and her husband married in June 1954. She was 21 at the time. Hide Caption 8 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg The couple went on to have two children: Jane, born in 1955, and James, born in 1965. Hide Caption 9 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg A portrait of Ginsburg from 1977. At the time, she was a professor at the Columbia University School of Law. She was also a general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. Hide Caption 10 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg is joined by family members on the steps of the US Supreme Court after arguing a case there in November 1978. With Ginsburg, from left, are her brother-in-law Ed Stiepleman; her nephew David Stiepleman; and her son, James. Hide Caption 11 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg was the first woman to be hired with tenure at the Columbia University School of Law. She also taught at the Rutgers University School of Law. Hide Caption 12 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, her husband and their two children -- James and Jane -- pose for a photo off the shore of St. Thomas in 1979. Hide Caption 13 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to be a judge for the US Court of Appeals' District of Columbia Circuit. Hide Caption 14 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg in her chambers at the US Courthouse in Washington. Hide Caption 15 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, her husband and their children vacation in Egypt in 1985. Hide Caption 16 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and her husband take a bus to Paris circa 1988. Hide Caption 17 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg reads to a group of children at the 10th anniversary of the TV show "Reading Rainbow" in 1993. Hide Caption 18 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the US Supreme Court in June 1993. Here, Ginsburg is holding a photograph of Hillary Clinton singing "the toothbrush song" with Ginsburg's granddaughter Clara and her nursery school class. Hide Caption 19 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg talks with a reporter after being nominated for the Supreme Court in 1993. On the far right is US Sen. Joe Biden. US Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is wearing the bowtie. Hide Caption 20 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg is greeted by her husband during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hide Caption 21 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg During her confirmation hearing, Ginsburg holds up a book titled "My Grandma is Very Special." It was written by Paul Spera, her grandson. Hide Caption 22 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg takes the Supreme Court oath from Chief Justice William Rehnquist, right, in August 1993. Joining them were Clinton and Martin Ginsburg. Hide Caption 23 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg poses with family members at the Supreme Court in October 1993. With Ginsburg, from left, are her son-in-law, George Spera; her daughter, Jane; her granddaughter Clara Spera; her husband, Martin; her son, James; and her grandson Paul Spera. Hide Caption 24 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and her husband embrace while attending an event. The two were married for nearly 60 years. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. Hide Caption 25 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg This informal group photo was taken of the US Supreme Court in December 1993. From left are Clarence Thomas, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ginsburg and Harry Blackmun. Hide Caption 26 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scalia and Ginsburg pose on an elephant during their tour of India in 1994. Scalia once said they were an "odd couple" and he counted her as his "best buddy" on the bench. Hide Caption 27 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, second from left, and Scalia, second from right, appeared in the opening-night production of "Ariadne auf Naxos," an opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 1994. Hide Caption 28 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and fellow Justice Sandra Day O'Connor hold basketballs given to them by the US women's basketball team in December 1995. Hide Caption 29 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, front right, poses with other prominent Jewish-Americans while standing in a maze on New York's Ellis Island in 1996. It was part of a project by photographer Frederic Brenner. Also in the front row, from left, are artist Roy Lichtenstein, actress Lauren Bacall, violinist Itzhak Perlman and playwright Arthur Miller. Hide Caption 30 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg sits in her Supreme Court chambers in 2002. Hide Caption 31 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg makes her way through a crowd after an address at an ACLU conference in June 2003. Hide Caption 32 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and her husband laugh as they listen to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer speak at Columbia Law School in September 2003. Hide Caption 33 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Justice Ginsburg with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at the Department of State on January 28, 2005, the day Justice Ginsburg swore Rice in as Secretary of State. Hide Caption 34 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg From left, Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, John Roberts, Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy pose for a photo before meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris in July 2007. Hide Caption 35 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg wears a "Super Diva" sweatshirt as she works out at the Supreme Court in August 2007. Hide Caption 36 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg talks with filmmaker David Grubin about his PBS series "The Jewish Americans" in 2008. Hide Caption 37 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg arrives to a joint session of Congress where President Barack Obama was speaking in 2009. That month, Ginsburg had surgery and treatment for early stages of pancreatic cancer. A decade before, she had successful surgery for colon cancer. Hide Caption 38 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg The only women who have become Supreme Court justices pose together in 2010. From left are Sandra Day O'Connor, Sonia Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. Hide Caption 39 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg While standing to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University, Ginsburg was surprised with a serenade from Spanish tenor Placido Domingo in 2011. Domingo also received an honorary degree. Hide Caption 40 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg visits with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington in 2012. Hide Caption 41 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg, with an extra from "Carmen," attends the opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2015. Hide Caption 42 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg acknowledges applause before a speaking event in Chicago in September 2017. Hide Caption 43 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg arrives to speak at New York University's law school in February 2018. Hide Caption 44 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg gives a keynote address at Columbia University in February 2018. Hide Caption 45 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg and other Supreme Court justices attend the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony at the White House in November 2018. Hide Caption 46 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg The US Supreme Court, with newest member Brett Kavanaugh, poses for an official portrait in Washington in November 2018. In the back row, from left, are Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Kavanaugh. In the front row, from left, are Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Ginsburg and Samuel Alito. Hide Caption 47 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg leaves a private ceremony at the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, where former Justice John Paul Stevens was lying in repose in July 2019. Hide Caption 48 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg makes her first public appearance since it was announced in August 2019 that she had undergone recent treatment for pancreatic cancer. While accepting an honorary degree from the University at Buffalo, she made remarks and briefly referenced her health. Hide Caption 49 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg In December 2019, Ginsburg was awarded the Berggruen Institute Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She planned to donate the $1 million prize to a number of organizations that promote opportunities for women. Hide Caption 50 of 51 Photos: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ginsburg participates in a discussion about the 19th Amendment at the Georgetown University Law Center in February 2020. The 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. Hide Caption 51 of 51

Liberals hoping to stop conservatives from reversing precedent

Attention to the procedural elements of a case -- which is shared to varying degrees by other justices -- parallels a sharper focus on preserving precedent, especially among Supreme Court liberals.

With the 2018 retirement of centrist conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, succeeded by Brett Kavanaugh, the high court is positioned for more conservative rulings and reversal of precedents from earlier eras. Over the past year, liberal justices have emphasized at arguments and in opinions the value of past milestones and stability in the law.

It has not been a winning battle, as the liberals made clear last term when they protested reversal of two decades-old precedents.

In May when the five-justice conservative bloc reversed a 1979 precedent, Nevada v. Hall, centered on when states can be sued in the courts of other states, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote : "The majority has surrendered to the temptation to overrule Hall even though it is a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems in the four decades since we decided it. Today's decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next."

Then in June, when the same five justices reversed a 1985 precedent on property regulation, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent, "Well, that didn't take long. Now one may wonder yet again."

Yet, beyond ideological battle lines, the broader debate can help illuminate esoteric concepts and enhance public understanding of how America's highest court operates. Procedural rules are intended to ensure that courts run fairly, consistently and efficiently.

Those issues usually preoccupy the justices and few others. Attention naturally goes to whether some challenged practice is constitutional, rather than, for example, whether the challengers have standing to sue or sufficiently raised their claims in lower courts before petitioning the justices for review.

But gateway questions have consequences and especially concern Ginsburg.

"The Kansas Supreme Court didn't reach that question," she told lawyer Sarah Schrup, representing a convicted murderer challenging Kansas' elimination of the insanity defense, "so you are asking us to decide it as a matter of first impression."

Ginsburg's question came as Schrup, who had stressed that Kansas law violates 14th Amendment guarantees of due process, pivoted to her claim that it also breaches an element of the 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

"We believe that this issue is presented," Schrup told Ginsburg, and added, "if you want supplemental briefing, we'll provide it."

The 'Bob Richards rule'

In a December dispute over the legal principles covering consolidated corporate tax refunds in bankruptcies, Ginsburg was again first into the mix.

In dispute was a common-law principle known as the "Bob Richards rule," named from a longstanding lower court case that held that any tax refund from a subsidiary's losses belongs to that subsidiary, rather than to the corporate entity that filed the consolidated tax return for multiple affiliates.

Lawyer Mitchell Reich, representing a bankruptcy trustee for United Western Bancorp, argued that judges hearing disputes over such tax refunds should instead apply the relevant state law to the case. He said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had advocated the Bob Richards rule when the case was in lower courts and added, "But, in this Court, the government has abandoned any defense of the Bob Richards rule ... Instead, the government advocates a brand-new rule."

Wait, Ginsburg said, how can the justices test the validity of a rule that the federal government has now abandoned?

"Why should we take up Bob Richards at all in this case? Because both sides agree that that's not what should be dispositive," she asked, adding: "The question presented, it seems, has now vanished from the case."

During arguments, justices -- on both the left and right -- became unusually animated in their discussion of how to review a rule that could be irrelevant in the matter at hand and possibly future disputes.

"I'm getting wheezy with this back and forth," Chief Justice John Roberts said as justices pressed US assistant solicitor general Michael Huston to clarify the government's position.

In an earlier set of arguments that captured more public attention, Ginsburg was the first justice into the Q-and-A in a case testing the sentencing procedures for Lee Boyd Malvo, one of two "Beltway snipers" convicted for a 2002 series of murders in the Washington, DC, area.

At issue whether Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the murder spree that left 10 people dead, should be re-sentenced based on a 2012 Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama, that invalidated mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders. A subsequent case, in 2016, declared that the Miller decision should be retroactively applied to juvenile defendants who were already convicted and still appealing their cases.

In the October hearing, Virginia state officials contended their system is actually discretionary, so Malvo would not be covered by the new cases. Ginsburg's questions suggested she believed otherwise and that Malvo would be entitled to a new sentencing.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on October 8, 2019.

As Virginia solicitor general Toby Heytens insisted that Miller v. Alabama would not apply to Malvo, whose "victims were already required to endure one full trial and sentencing hearing more than a decade ago. ... The Court should not lightly ask them to go through another, particularly given that the original sentencing fully complied with then controlling constitutional restrictions."

"Mr. Heytens, could we back up a little," Ginsburg interjected, "and explain to me why these decisions are not mandatory? I mean, the jury had only two choices, death or life without parole. And nobody seemed to have appreciated at the time of Malvo's convictions that there was any discretion."

Heytens acknowledged that the jury was given limited options but said that under Virginia law, the trial judge had authority to suspend the jury's sentence, which would ensure no legally mandatory prison term.

"Has any Virginia judge ever reduced a juvenile life without parole to life with parole or a term of years?" Ginsburg asked.

Heytens said he was unaware of a judge ever reducing a life-without-parole sentence for a juvenile convicted of capital murder.

Assistant US Solicitor General Eric Feigin, representing the federal government during the hour-long arguments, sided in large part with Virginia, for limited effect of the Miller ruling.

Ginsburg interjected, not with a procedural question, but rather with a query that liberal justices have increasingly posed to Department of Justice lawyers representing the Trump administration, as it has reversed course on Obama era legal positions.

"As I understood it," Ginsburg asked, "the (federal) government originally argued that juveniles sentenced to life without parole must be resentenced after (the 2012 and 2016 decisions), whether life without parole is mandatory or imposed as a matter of discretion. That was the position that the government took, and most of the lower courts are in accord with it. What led the -- to the SG's change in position?"

Feigin acknowledged some variation in the Department of Justice position but said it is now "consistent" in the stance that the high court's decision forbidding life without parole for juveniles has limited retroactivity.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who served with Ginsburg on both the high court and US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often spoke of her trenchant approach to oral arguments, specifically describing her in one interview as "a tigress on civil procedure."

"She has done more to shape the law in this field than any other justice on this court," Scalia said in a 2013 interview in his chambers. "She will take a lawyer who is making a ridiculous argument and just shake him like a dog with a bone."

On Tuesday, Ginsburg laughed at the remarks of her late friend and colleague, who may have respected her but often voted against her.

Rejoined Ginsburg, "I wish he had listened to me more often."