The difference between Scalia and his detractors is not over the concepts of either “judicial independence” or “judicial review”.
But, unlike some others on the SCOTUS, Scalia would tell you that in his jurisprudence he acknowledges that he does not have the right to AMEND the Constitution to make it say what he wants it to say simply because he thinks he (or the South African supreme court) can say it better than it is said in the Constitution.
We do not have “freedom of speech”, a woman’s right to vote or the end of slavery acknowledged in the Constitution on the basis that some Supreme Court Judges decided they belong there - even though we may all think those are good things. They entered the Constitution when we the people placed those things there in amendments.
When judges think they can write new “rights” into the Constitution - because they think it is a better idea - then by the same abrogation of a right that belongs only to us - to amend the Constitution - they obtain the power to throw out our rights that HAVE been written there - and they do (campaign finance reform, eminent domain, etc.)
Scalia understands this.
A SCOTUS that actually believes in the independence of the judiciary would know that its primary client is not the latest “popular” “rights” agenda, but the Constitution, preserving the application of it as it has been produced, buy the people. A politically “independent” judiciary would have told Congress - on the Campaign Finance Reform issue - that if they wanted to abrogate the First Amendment, to exclude political speech, they’d have to get the Constitution amended. Instead, many on the court treat it as another political body, as an unelected super-legislature, re-writing the Constitution from the bench, one ruling at a time.
Actually Scalia’s view of the constitution is astonishingly liberal. If he was a justice on the early courts he would be all alone on the extreme liberal end. His view of the commerce clause is abominable.