It's Not Only the Communists That Say Stupid Things

We baby-seal clubbers are capable of it also.


The No. 2 Republican in the House has openly criticized the federal courts since they refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

He pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme Court who were activists and isolated.

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio.



I happen to be in agreement here. Unless a Justice is citing a pre-Revolutionary British decision, I am a firm believer that the U.S. Constitution, and decisions made by judges under the U.S. Constitution, should be the basis for Federal court decisions. To make a decision based upon international law would be like...uh...making a decision based upon Exodus.

Well, Tom DeLay went on:


"And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."


Sorry, but I've lost his logic here. It's one thing for a jury to only base its decisions based upon the facts presented in the courtroom. It's another thing entirely for an appeals court justice, charged with reviewing the Constitutionality of a decision, to perform research using available media - law books, web sites, telephone 900 number party lines, what have you.

As of right now, neither Tom DeLay's news page nor the Fox News article nor Daily Delay give no further explanation of his position on Internet research. Perhaps someone knowledgeable could explain.

Technorati Tags:

Comments

Photominer said…
Hi OE, well to rock the boat a little, isn't your constitution open to interpretation and change? If there isn't something specifically written into it about this, doesn't it make sense for the judge to try and find legel precedents wherever he can?

Just because it isn't American in origin doesn't make it bad, and there are a lot of legal systems in place that have been around a lot longer than yours (or mine for that matter).

Re: the internet statement, yep, incomprehensible. Heaven forbid that a judge do his own research. Food for thought.
Ontario Emperor said…
Re the Constitution issue - there is a clause in the Constitution which states that anything not covered by the Constitution is reserved to the states, or to the people. So if something isn't specifically written into the Consitution, or covered by a ruling from a U.S. court, how can a judge make an AUTHORITATIVE statement that a Singapore law is relevant AND binding? It's probably better for the judge to say that it's not covered by law, and therefore it isn't relevant to introduce other factors to make the law.

Note that I'm speaking of the absolute issue here, and I'm not delving into situations where a judge says "My decision is based on the second comma of the first sentence of the Third Amendment." At least in this case the judge is citing a Constitutional source for his/her decision.
Photominer said…
Hi OE, thats an interesting point of view. How then does the state (or the people for that matter) decide what the law should be? Shouldn't the people you (and we) entrust to formulate laws try and find out as much as they can about the issues? If a country other than the US has a law that works and make sense, why then should it be ignored?

I don't know all the details so I'm sure I'm way over my head on this.
Ontario Emperor said…
If a country other than the US has a law that works, then the legislative branch (not the judicial branch) should propose the law.
Ontario Emperor said…
From The Cato Institute (though Estephania would point out that it's not only the Democrats that delay judicial nominations):

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Policy Analysis no. 446 August 6, 2002

How Constitutional Corruption Has Led to Ideological Litmus Tests for Judicial Nominees
by Roger Pilon

Roger Pilon is vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute. He holds Cato's B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies and is the director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies.

Executive Summary

The 2000 presidential election was widely understood to be a battle for the courts. When George W. Bush finally won, following the Supreme Court's split decision in Bush v. Gore, many Democratic activists simply dug in their heels, vowing to frustrate Bush's efforts to fill vacancies on the federal courts. After Democrats took control of the Senate in May of 2001, they began calling explicitly for ideological litmus tests for judicial nominees. And they started a confirmation stall, especially for circuit court nominees, that continues to this day. Thus, 8 of Bush's first 11 circuit court nominees went for over a year without even a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and most have still not come before the committee.

As the backlog of nominees grows, Democrats are quite explicit about the politics of the matter: their aim is to keep "highly credentialed, conservative ideologues" from the bench. The rationales they offer contend that judges today are, and perhaps should be, "setting national policy." One such "policy" they abhor is "the Supreme Court's recent 5--4 decisions that constrain congressional power." Thus the importance, they say, of placing "sympathetic judges" on the bench, judges who share "the core values held by most of our country's citizens." In a word, everything is politics, nothing is law.

The battle between politics and law takes place at many points in the American system of government, but in recent years it has become especially intense over judicial nominations. That is because judges today set national policy far more than they used to--and far more than the Constitution contemplates. Because the original constitutional design has been corrupted, especially as it relates to the constraints the Constitution places on politics, we have come to ideological litmus tests for judges. The New Deal Court, following President Roosevelt's notorious Court-packing threat, politicized the Constitution, laying the foundation for several forms of judicial activism. After that it was only a matter of time until the judiciary itself had to be politicized. We are reaping the fruit of that constitutional corruption.

That will not change until we come to grips with the first principles of the matter--with the true foundations of our constitutional system. Yet neither party today seems willing to do that. Democrats have an activist agenda that a politicized Constitution well serves. Republicans have their own agenda and their own reasons for avoiding the basic issues. Thus, it may fall to the nominees themselves to take a stand for law over politics, the better to restore the Constitution and the rule of law it was meant to secure.

Full Text of Policy Analysis no. 446 (PDF, 224 KB)

Popular posts from this blog