Posted on 07/24/2007 6:15:10 AM PDT by indcons
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Judicial independence is under attack from voters and politicians who don't understand that court rulings must be based on the law instead of what is popular.
That's according to former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She spoke today in Traverse City during the annual meeting of the National Governors Association.
O'Connor urged the governors to push for improved civics instruction in public schools.
She said assaults on judicial authority have surfaced around the country. They include efforts to strip the courts of jurisdiction over certain types of cases.
O'Connor warned that American democracy will break down unless judges are able to decide cases without fear of retaliation.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
Judges should be free from retaliation. But that doesn’t mean that the judicial function shouldn’t have to answer to the other two branches of government. Removing the ability of the judicial system to have juristiction over certain kinds of cases is not retaliation against judges. Our 3 branches of government were meant to be interdependent, not independent.
She is correct. However, she also judged by the standard of JUDICIAL ACTIVISM and ignored her sworn role to rule by constitutional law. This woman should be ashamed to say the word law. She had nothing in common with the law!
Typical doublespeak: Judicial independence is under attack from voters BECAUSE court rulings are being based on what is popular instead of the law.
Actually, Sandy, judicial integrity is under attack from activist judges who don't understand that the Constitution and statutory law mean exactly what they say rather than what they would have said if they had been written by the activist judges.
Nobody did more to undermione the idea of rule of law than Mrs swing vote.
If judges would apply the law rather than right it from the bench, this would not be an issue.
Exactly! Over the last few decades our society has lost any conception of what a judge is supposed to be. Increasingly, people view the judiciary as just another branch of the legislature, even though it’s not elected. If the legislature won’t pass a same-sex marriage bill, for example, they then ask the court to “pass” one.
Judges like O’Connor have helped create this situation, aided by a “liberal” media and academic community which applauded all the “sociological jurisprudence” excesses that began with the Warren Court. It was then that people began to view judges not as impersonal weighers of the law, but as politicians whose duty was to “follow their heart” and do what was right (as long as that meant doing what “liberals” demanded).
O’Connor hasn’t been the worst offender in this, though she has been an offender. Warren, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, the four current lefties, and others have been worse. But to her discredit she’s done an awful lot of whining over it. She views judges such as herself as being independent of the Constitution itself. Judicial independence is supposed to mean that judges follow the law impartially and do their best to enforce the law regardless of political considerations or opinion. O’Connor and other “liberals” think judicial independence means the judge can rule however he damn well pleases regardless what the law says or its framers intended. If some arrogant judge such as Margaret Marshall decides she wants to revolutionize society by overthrowing 5,000 years of tradition, she should be able to “interpret” a constitutional provision ratified in 1797 as fulfilling her “dreams”, even if the provision had nothing whatsoever to do with the issue in question. But judges can ONLY do this to advance “liberalism”. That’s the view of judicial independence ascribed to by O’Connor and her media and academic sycophants.
One of the writers at National Review said that O’Connor was in over her head when she was on the court. That’s been true of other judges, but the difference was that O’Connor seemed painfully unaware of the fact that she didn’t have much of a clue.
Sandra working hard to still appear relevent. It’s over, Sandy. Hang it up. Go home to your sick hubby.
Followed by:
judges are able to decide cases without fear of retaliation.
Sounds to me like a contradiction, there Sandy. To fix a problem you change the law, not allow judges to make it.
Traverse City should be known, at least for the time Sandy is there, as Travisty of Law City.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG!
There MUST be the ability to "retaliate" against judges, lest they become courthouse kings above reproach.
This grows all the more important for high-court justices. Their MUST be limits and checks upon their judicial powers and opinions.
To quote Gerald Ford in his brief (but Lincolnesque) speech on the steps of his home the night of Nixon's resignation:
"Here, the people rule."
The people.
NOT Justices and judges.
When a judge or justice - or a full court - issues a ruling that is outrageous, that judge or justice must face personal consequences.
Sandra Day O'Connor was a fool. Wasn't she the one who mentioned the importance of "international law" in reaching U.S. Supreme Court decisions?
- John
Or does she mean decide cases w/o fear of the consequences?
Judges are no further above the law than anyone else and as such must answer to a higher authority: the people.
That’s fair; the Constitution is threatened by Judicial independence.
Later, O'Connor had her dog put to sleep for trying to bite her whenever she kicked it.
HA!
Well, O.K. - let’s backtrack a bit and ask what “retaliation” means. Judges shouldn’t be able to be personally sued. But the Constitution provides for their impeachment. Impeachment, OTOH, is supposed to be for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Can a ruling be such? If so, what are the criteria?
When I read the word “retaliation”, I was thinking more of personal consequences, not professional ones.
How can one respect the judiciary when EVERY SCOTUS decision is 4/5? We’d be better off having popular votes on SCourt cases. Or just flip a coin.
If OConnor believes the founders gave us a form of government that is to be ruled by a single unelected, unaccountable judge, she is too stupid to have ever been considered a learned individual and is unworthy to have sat in judgement of the law.
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