Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Helmholtz
I would like to think this is the example that will one day held up in law schools as an example of "the dark days of the legal profession" when judges routinely thought of themselves as benevolent dictators, free to rule by decree, making up law as necessary as long as they believed it to be for the greater good.

Unfortunately, I fear it is going to get worse long before it gets better. With the left unable to win at the ballot boxes, and judges willing to enact policy from the bench, the battle for the control of the courtroom could get intense.
927 posted on 06/23/2005 2:47:22 PM PDT by NavVet (“Benedict Arnold was wounded in battle fighting for America, but no one remembers him for that.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: NavVet

"Unfortunately, I fear it is going to get worse long before it gets better. With the left unable to win at the ballot boxes, and judges willing to enact policy from the bench, the battle for the control of the courtroom could get intense."

Interesting.
You appear to think that the problem lies with the judges, not with the constitutional structure itself. You acknowledge, tacitly, that the Supreme Court ought to have such power as it does; you see the battle as one of making sure the right judges are there so that they don't use that power in ways you think are inappropriate.

I think that the problem lies with the American constitutional structure itself. It does not seem to me that the solution lies in trying to somehow find 9 incorruptible men who, once in the position of final arbiter and creator of law in America, will use such powers only for the benevolent ends of those who originally appointed them (but cannot remove them).
It seems to me that the solution lies in changing the US Constitutional structure so that the courts cannot overturn laws passed by Congress, giving the elected branches the supreme authority which cannot be challenged by anybody.

Somewhere, that supreme authority lies.
In America, currently it lies in the Supreme Court, where 5 unelected, lifetime officials can establish any law as the supreme law.
I think that the supreme authority ought to lie in the 535 elected members of the US Congress, who serve relatively short terms and can be held accountable by the democracy.

But such a change would be fundamental. It would require a different constitution than the one America has. Americans would have to opt for a constitutional convention, such as the US constitution allows, and formulate a new constitution which would remove supreme authority from the judiciary and place it either in the legislature or, perhaps, the executive, depending on American choices.

That would be radical, and I have no sense that Americans connect the bad laws that come from the US Supreme Court with a flaw in the American Constitution itself.


938 posted on 06/23/2005 2:59:35 PM PDT by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 927 | View Replies ]

To: NavVet
... the battle for the control of the courtroom could get intense.

Yep, just heard on Brit Hume all the demonRATS except KKK wrote a letter to PRESIDENT Bush telling him he needs TO CHECK WITH THEM BEFORE NOMINATING ANOTHER JURIST.

954 posted on 06/23/2005 3:23:20 PM PDT by Just A Nobody (I - L O V E - my attitude problem!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 927 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson