Ginsburg: Int'l law shaped court rulings

AP | 8/03/03 | GINA HOLLAND

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is looking beyond America's borders for guidance in handling cases on issues like the death penalty and gay rights, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Saturday.

The justices referred to the findings of foreign courts this summer in their own ruling that states may not punish gay couples for having sex.

And in 2002, the court said that executing mentally retarded people is unconstitutionally cruel. That ruling noted that the practice was opposed internationally.

"Our island or lone ranger mentality is beginning to change," Ginsburg said during a speech to the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers group holding its first convention.

Justices "are becoming more open to comparative and international law perspectives," said Ginsburg, who has supported a more global view of judicial decision making.

Ginsburg cited an international treaty in her vote in June to uphold the use of race in college admissions.

The shift has angered some conservatives. Justice Antonin Scalia, in the gay sex case, wrote with two colleagues that the court should not "impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans."

David Rivkin Jr., a conservative Washington attorney, said foreign trends can be helpful to legislators in setting policy, but not to judges in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

Last month, Ginsburg and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer discussed the death penalty and terrorism with French President Jacques Chirac during a European tour. France outlawed the death penalty in 1981. Ginsburg was one of five justices who attended a conference on the European constitution.

Ginsburg said Saturday that the Internet is making decisions of courts in other countries more readily available in America, and they should not be ignored.

"While you are the American Constitution Society, your perspective on constitutional law should encompass the world," she told the group of judges, lawyers and students. "We are the losers if we do not both share our experiences with and learn from others."

___

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

[P.O.E.]

Maybe Ginsburg needs a walnetto.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

A lot of countries torture and kill judges who don't make decisions acceptable to the government. We will follow this trend???

[mr.pink]

Wouldn't it be more appropriate for them to look to the US Constitution, or that too quaint a concept for Justice Ginsberg?

Unfortunatley, Justice Ginsberg and the majority of contemporary liberals consider the Constitution itself to be "quaint".

But then again, if Arlen Spector can grab Scottish Law to throw to Bubba as a political life preserver, maybe Ruth is just getting up to speed.

[Cosmo]

Wanna be really scared? read Ronald Dworkin's apologia for judicial activism , "Law's Empire". It's practically the handbook for leftist judicial ...ahem..."interpretation."

[dufekin]

I agree. Impeach.

Wasn't this nation founded by a bunch of radically sensical people who didn't want to be ruled by a bunch of aloof foreign princes an ocean away? So why do our Courts decide absurdly that they are subservient to the European Courts?

Last I checked, the Constitution was designed to minimize the influence of foreign potentates on American justice. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, often labeled as a "moderate conservative," deserves to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office because she obviously has not read nor believed in the Constitution under which she supposedly ought to adjudicate the cases brought before her Court.

By gosh, if she's a "conservative," as the popular canards dictate, what the heck is a "liberal," besides a traitorous Communist in willful ignorance of any of the provisions of the Constitution who acts and adjudicates solely on the basis of emotion and defies reason?

In any case, isn't it racist to consider only European courts? Why not consider the standards of justice of the Chinese Communists, the Talibanic sharia courts, the decrees of genocidical terrorist military dictators, and other African, Asian, and Latin American countries?

And the American Constitution Society might need to investigate a document known to Americans as the Constitution!

[Itzlzha]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is looking beyond America's borders for guidance in handling cases on issues like the death penalty and gay rights, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Saturday.

The justices referred to the findings of foreign courts this summer in their own ruling that states may not punish gay couples for having sex.

And in 2002, the court said that executing mentally retarded people is unconstitutionally cruel. That ruling noted that the practice was opposed internationally.

THANK YOU!!! You have just admitted to your own failure to "faithfully execute the laws of the land"!!!!

By looking ANYWHERE but the US Constitution, you are in breach of your oath, and are summarily IMPEACHED!

Ruth Bader (Meinhoff) Ginsburg...take your scrawny scarecrow A$$ and Vacate your position, and take the other TRAITORS with you...don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

[Lexington Green]

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”


— Abraham Lincoln

[Itzlzha]

Both she and Nancy Pelosi look like the undead to me.

More like Max Schreck form the original "Nosferatu"!

[tpaine]

Bizarro kevin. - Yesterday you pinged me to this:

21 people arrested in England over human sacrifice of African boy
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/957117/posts?page=32


-- Today you're claiming Ginsberg is my sweety? Gad man, get a grip. Try to regain some bit of control over your fantastic imaginings.

[mrsmith]

The Magna Carta is one historical example of how to deal with tyrants like Ginsburg.
Don't fund them unless they give up some of their powers to the people, and agree to respect some of our rights.

Abusing the 14th Amendment is going to do as much good for the Supreme Court as abusing the 10th did for the states.

[Genesis defender]

The weird thing about Ginsburg is that she and her husband are really good friends with Antonin Scalia and his wife. I forgot where I heard this (somewhere on radio), but they get together on holidays and special occasions.

How Scalia can fraternize with the enemy is beyond my comprehension.

[facedown]

Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww......

Thanks a lot for the imagery. 8^)

[Bernard Marx]

Why should anyone be surprised by this? The woman's biography (which I found in less than a minute with Google) gives clear indications of what she'd do once given lifetime power on the SCOTUS. How did naive ninnies like Orrin Hatch on the Senate Judicial Committee THINK she'd rule? She's a former general counsel for the ACLU for heaven's sake!

Here are some exerpts from her CV:

American Civil Liberties Union: Women's Rights Project, Founder and Counsel (1972-80); General Counsel (1973-80); National Board of Directors (1974-80).

Faculties visited: New York University School of Law (Spring 1968), Harvard Law School (Fall 1971), University of Amsterdam (Summer 1975), University of Strasbourg (Summer 1975), Salzburg Seminar in American Studies (Summer 1984), Aspen Institute (Summer 1990).

Books authored include: Civil Procedure in Sweden (1965) (with Anders Bruzelius); Text, Cases, and Materials on Sex-Based Discrimination (1974) (with Herma Hill Kay and Kenneth M. Davidson). Has contributed numerous articles to law reviews and other periodicals on civil procedure, conflict of laws, constitutional law, and comparative law.

The Left's playbook is right from Karl Marx and Lenin: grab the centers of political power by any means necessary. Now we're allowing the Rats to block any judicial appointments that might help derail their Communist freight train. The only thing they understand is raw power and Pubbies are too gutless to use it.

[tpaine]

The weird thing about Ginsburg is that she and her husband are really good friends with Antonin Scalia and his wife. I forgot where I heard this (somewhere on radio), but they get together on holidays and special occasions.

How Scalia can fraternize with the enemy is beyond my comprehension.
51 -Gd-


I doubt they see each other as enemies. They are merely on opposite sides of the same overall view of constitutional matters.
Both believe that government can & must control individual life & liberty, -- they just bicker as to the reasoning of exactly why.

Ginsburg is the typical statist liberal, who believes big brother must have the power to micro-manage your life through better planning & regulations.
Scalia is a typical authoritarian statist, who believes government must have the power to control your actions through prohibitive law.

They are both wrong, and both ignoring our constitutions clear limits on governmental powers.

[RightWhale]

Multiculturalism is not in adopting styles and morality of other cultures, but in being aware of them. It would be inappropriate to adopt all moral systems just because other societies practice them. One example: should we promote FGM just because it is widely practiced in Africa, ?

[Genesis defender]

I had thought Scalia had a bit of a Libertarian leaning. One magazine article about him stated he opposed any Constitutional amendment banning flag-burning. He said one cannot ban a form of speech just because it's unpopular.

Perhaps 'enemies' was too harsh a word. I said that because they always seem to be voting on opposite sides of cases before the SCOTUS.

BTW, who appointed Scalia? I was too young to know.

[Osage Orange]

Sorry..but there's a striking resemblance...don't you think?

LOL..!!

FRegards,

[only1percent]

This demonstrates to me the imperative to launch constitutional amendments to defend key "exceptional" American policies, such as the ability to impose the death penalty, before the Supreme Court overturns them as inconsistent with "evolving" or "global" standards.

20 years ago it would have been laughable to suggest the Constitution pre-empted sodomy laws. 40 years ago liberals and conservatives alike would have deemed it absurd to propose the Consitution protected abortion on demand and without the consent of the spouse (if married) or parents (if a minor).

Gay marriage is, in my opinion, a trivial matter compared to the other things that the Supremes could eventually shove down the throats of the country...

[Republican Wildcat]

I agree--although I don't know where you heard Ginsburg called a conservative. She's a Clinton appointee.

[kattracks]

Exactly. Apparently, Ginsberg didn't look to the Egyptian courts when it came to seeking guidance from the international community concerning gays.
Very selective in which international laws to emulate, I'd say.