Clearly we have a rogue court on our hands. Rehnquist's comments are interesting.
The Congress is the sole judge of impeachment; and a judgment of impeachment CANNNOT be reversed by any court.
End of discussion.
The people decide who gets into Congress, and if they think a Congress has acted inappropriately, they can remove that Congress at the next election.
Conclusion: ultimate power in this country is supposed to reside in the hands of the people, and nobody (not even nine guys in black robes) dictates to them with impunity.
But the term of their service can be changed.
I would love to see a real life case over this balance of power argument.
And hopefully the congress would have some backbone.
Mr. Rehnquist sounds a bit too 'supreme'.
Well aren't we the snob nosed one...you know people, those who THINK they are high and mighty are the one's that fall off their perch FIRST and I foresee a fall coming very shortly...how about you?
If they wanted to, Congress tomorrow could limit the Supreme Court's jurisdiction to hearing parking ticket appeals from Bergen County, New Jersey. In my opinion, it's worth a try.
As a practical matter, he is correct. Impeachments of Supreme Court justices have failed in the past. Lower court judges have been impeached and removed successfully. However, I would still like to see the process go through the motions of debate. It would be a very nice rebuke from the house.
Immune from impeachment in Rehnquist's case just means that he'll die before he get's sacked. If it came to that...why is he squaring off with the congress is my question?
The soon to be ex SCOTUS wouldn't want to bet his black robe on that one.
We're ain't gonna be impeaching any justices over their rulings if we can't even manage to remove a President who screws around and then lies to the nation about it.
Worst. Paraphrase. Ever.
This Court is involved in the greatest abuse of governmental power in the history of our country. That's gotta be grounds for impeachment.
With all due deference to the octogenarian megalomaniac, perhaps not.
But indifference to his oath of office certainly qualifies!
The Constitution of the United States is not, I certainly pray, subject to foreign interpretation, and any suggestion that it is, or should be, for me constitutes as much of a high crime and misdemeanor as one could imagine: what could be worse?
As for the "treaties" issue. Unratified treaties are clearly meaningless. Ratified treaties are also meaningless if its ultimate terms can be determined by a foreign power or a collection of foreign powers.
Any argument to the contrary, in my opinion, is subject to the ultimate argument: removal from office by means of force of arms, if necessary.
Dennis J. Hastert
235 Cannon HOB
Washington,DC
20515-1314
Phone: (202) 225-2976
He's the Speaker of the House, wouldn't hurt to drop him a line, get his opinion...who knows???
Dear Justice Renquist:
The standard is "Good Behaviour." A much lower standard than "Treason, Bribery, or other high Cimes and Misdemeanors."
We are not in a good situation today.
This headline is a LIE and does not reflect the meaning of his statement.
Our founding fathers wrote about lifetime appointments in the federalist papers.I quote from Alexander Hamilton in fedralist#78:
That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. Periodical appointments, however regulated, or by whomsoever made, would, in some way or other, be fatal to their necessary independence. If the power of making them was committed either to the Executive or legislature, there would be danger of an improper complaisance to the branch which possessed it; if to both, there would be an unwillingness to hazard the displeasure of either; if to the people, or to persons chosen by them for the special purpose, there would be too great a disposition to consult popularity, to justify a reliance that nothing would be consulted but the Constitution and the laws.
There is yet a further and a weightier reason for the permanency of the judicial offices, which is deducible from the nature of the qualifications they require. It has been frequently remarked, with great propriety, that a voluminous code of laws is one of the inconveniences necessarily connected with the advantages of a free government. To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly and wickedness of mankind, that the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge. These considerations apprise us, that the government can have no great option between fit character; and that a temporary duration in office, which would naturally discourage such characters from quitting a lucrative line of practice to accept a seat on the bench, would have a tendency to throw the administration of justice into hands less able, and less well qualified, to conduct it with utility and dignity. In the present circumstances of this country, and in those in which it is likely to be for a long time to come, the disadvantages on this score would be greater than they may at first sight appear; but it must be confessed, that they are far inferior to those which present themselves under the other aspects of the subject.
And from federalist #79 on removing Judges:
The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be impeached for malconduct by the House of Representatives, and tried by the Senate; and, if convicted, may be dismissed from office, and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own Constitution in respect to our own judges.
The want of a provision for removing the judges on account of inability has been a subject of complaint. But all considerate men will be sensible that such a provision would either not be practiced upon or would be more liable to abuse than calculated to answer any good purpose. The mensuration of the faculties of the mind has, I believe, no place in the catalogue of known arts. An attempt to fix the boundary between the regions of ability and inability, would much oftener give scope to personal and party attachments and enmities than advance the interests of justice or the public good. The result, except in the case of insanity, must for the most part be arbitrary; and insanity, without any formal or express provision, may be safely pronounced to be a virtual disqualification.
The constitution of New York, to avoid investigations that must forever be vague and dangerous, has taken a particular age as the criterion of inability. No man can be a judge beyond sixty. I believe there are few at present who do not disapprove of this provision. There is no station, in relation to which it is less proper than to that of a judge. The deliberating and comparing faculties generally preserve their strength much beyond that period in men who survive it; and when, in addition to this circumstance, we consider how few there are who outlive the season of intellectual vigor, and how improbable it is that any considerable portion of the bench, whether more or less numerous, should be in such a situation at the same time, we shall be ready to conclude that limitations of this sort have little to recommend them. In a republic, where fortunes are not affluent, and pensions not expedient, the dismission of men from stations in which they have served their country long and usefully, on which they depend for subsistence, and from which it will be too late to resort to any other occupation for a livelihood, ought to have some better apology to humanity than is to be found in the imaginary danger of a superannuated bench.