In Snowmass, Justice Antonin Scalia says judges should not be policymakers

Aspen Times ^ | July 21, 2013 | Bob Ward

[reaganaut1]

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia used the twin terrors of Nazi Germany and radical Islam to warn a Snowmass Village audience Saturday about the dangers of judicial activism.

Speaking to a gathering of the Utah State Bar Association at the Westin Resort in Snowmass Village, the longest-serving justice on the nation’s highest court lamented a trend among federal judges, including his colleagues on the Supreme Court, to read and interpret the U.S. Constitution as a “living document” that changes over time.

Scalia described himself as an “originalist” in his reading of legal texts.

“I believe that texts should be read to mean what they were understood to mean when they were adopted,” he explained.

In other words, he sees the Constitution as a “static document” that means the same thing now as it did at the time of its creation.

When judges begin to reinterpret founding documents like the Constitution and make value-laden decisions about individual rights and liberties, Scalia said, they distort the workings of a democratic society. The title of Scalia’s talk, “Mullahs of the West: Judges as Moral Arbiters,” underscores his point that societal decisions about morality and human rights — most of which have no right or wrong answers — should be made in the political arena and not by the courts.

...

Scalia opened his talk with a reference to the Holocaust, which happened to occur in a society that was, at the time, “the most advanced country in the world.” One of the many mistakes that Germany made in the 1930s was that judges began to interpret the law in ways that reflected “the spirit of the age.” When judges accept this sort of moral authority, as Scalia claims they’re doing now in the U.S., they get themselves and society into trouble.

[reaganaut1]

Can someone elaborate on Scalia's comment about German judges in the 1930s? Is a transcript of the speech online?

I admire Scalia and sure hope he outlasts Zero.

[Perdogg]

freepmail BuckeyeTexan or Perdogg to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.

[Gene Eric]

bump

[EternalVigilance]

his point that societal decisions about morality and human rights — most of which have no right or wrong answers — should be made in the political arena and not by the courts.

Morality and rights are beyond the purview of either the courts or the political arena. They precede and supersede all man made laws or written constitutions.

And the founders said, rightly, that these things are "self-evident," or, to use the modern vernacular, "as plain as the nose on your face."

This "no right or wrong answers" crap is squishy libertarian nonsense.

God save us from judges and politicians who don't know what our rights are, or the simple difference between right and wrong.

How can any of these people ever keep their oaths, when they don't even understand the ABCs of what it is they swore to support and defend?

[Standing Wolf]

I believe that texts should be read to mean what they were understood to mean when they were adopted

That may explain why Marxists so vociferously assert both words' meanings and the very idea of meaning are infinitely elastic.

[TheOldLady]

Thank you for the ping.

[NonValueAdded]

The thing is ... we’re only one vote away on the Court.

[21stCenturion]

You should take the time to view the film ‘Judgement at Nuremberg’ to find the answer to your query.

One Man’s Opinion

21stCenturion