Posted on 02/08/2006 6:15:30 PM PST by new yorker 77
CHICAGO - Stressing that "the role of a judge is to interpret the law and not legislate it," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told University of Chicago Law School students yesterday that they need not fear judicial activism by the current members of the Supreme Court.
"There’s no reason to believe that judges are now more ready to overturn prior precedent," Breyer said while addressing several hundred students inside the university’s Glen A. Lloyd Auditorium.
"All of the present judges basically agree that Congress, not judges, should decide policy," he said.
The 67-year-old Breyer, an alumnus of Harvard Law School, was on campus to speak as the university’s 2006 Ulysses and Marguerite Schwarz Memorial lecturer, an honor held each year by a distinguished lawyer or teacher.
During his hourlong lecture, Breyer took the opportunity to speak about the issue of judicial activism, a hot topic for many Americans in the wake of the recent turnover in the Supreme Court.
Last week, Samuel Alito was sworn in as a justice, four months after John Roberts Jr. was named the court’s chief justice. Both men were nominated by President George W. Bush, and some people have expressed concern that Alito and Roberts will shift the court to the right.
But Breyer - who was nominated in 1994 by President Bill Clinton - said yesterday that all the justices know their duty as members of the nation’s highest court and that each makes his or her decisions based not on politics but on the law.
"If a president appoints a justice and thinks he’s going to decide every case the way he wants it decided, he is wrong," Breyer said. "A president can’t control individual decisions, and he shouldn’t hope to."
Breyer said that justices might not always agree with the laws enacted but that they are still required to interpret those laws objectively.
Copyright © 2006 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved.
"Prior precedent" was judicial activism. What I hate about lawyers is that their anchor is not the law as written but other interpretations.
It's not a problem for him, maybe.
How in the world did this room temperature intellect every pass the bar? What idiots put him on the Court? WHERE was the Senate when they were suppose to be advising and consenting on this clown? Ever listen to this twit? He is even more of an embarrassment as on the SC then Ginzburg
""All of the present judges basically agree that Congress, not judges, should decide policy," he said. "
Hey, Breyer! You f'in idiot. The Constitution STATES that Congress, not judges, WILL decide policy. Jesus, man, did you go to law school or buy a diploma.
seeeesh!
I agree. Why do we need precedent? Why not just interpret/rule on the law as it is written?
What about the Texas sodomy law they overturned? That was certainly "settled law." And the HORRIBLE eminent domain decision that clearly has rewritten the law on what constitutes a lawful taking of private property. These liberals are lying, as usual. Some student should have asked Breyer how many conservative votes he has cast when he said the justices have no political agenda. He and Ginsberg have voted just as Hillary would vote on virtually every issue since Billy Jeff appointed them.
And just how did Breyer vote on the eminent domain case?
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "NY Times Touts Dubious Conclusions on School Quality"
Counselor, you should be able to critique Justice Breyer on the merits, and not call names - certainly without profanities. That you did otherwise does not reflect well upon you as an attorney.
Just because you - and I - disagree with Breyer on the merits of his decisions does not automatically make him an "idiot" who bought a diploma-mill law degree. He subscribes to a different approach than you and I do; that does not disqualify him as a judge.
No, they cannot be written definitively enough to cover every aspect of a problem. The First Amendment states that Congress can't make laws abridging freedom of the press -- that does NOT mean that libel laws and laws against advocating immediate revolution by force are unconstitutional. Then there is the Fourth Amendment's ban on "unreasonable" searches and seizures -- can a cop strip search a citizen Constitutionally? "Reasonable" doesn't by itself give you the answer to that question.
If a law needs to be interpreted, shouldn't the law be revised by the people who wrote it in the first place?
The authors of the Bill of Rights are unavailable at the moment. Of course, Laws and the Constitution can be amended or repealed, but this can't happen every time there is a dispute over interpretation. For example, go ahead and try to write a Law that properly defines "disturbing the peace" just as it pertains to how loudly one can play an outdoor stereo system. What is fine at 3pm on a college campus is inappropriate at 3am in suburbia. Decibels, time of day, nearness of neighbors, etc. all vary.
huh ?
Shouldn't the role of a judge be to "apply" the law to specific cases that come before them?
By and large, yeah. That's how things get done.
I know the law is enforced by 'law enforcement' people, so this question is not about that. Why should laws have to be interpreted? Aren't they clear enough when they're written?
Not always. Holes show up in the law occasionally, and judges have to fill in the blanks.
If a law needs to be interpreted, shouldn't the law be revised by the people who wrote it in the first place?
If a judge raises a red flag for the legislature in his opinion, then yeah, they can legislatively affirm or overrule the judge's decision. But this can only happen after the fact; in the meantime, the judge has a case sitting on his docket, which means that a bunch of people are still waiting for a resolution to a legal dispute. They can't just wait around for the legislature to fix the problem.
The way I see it, if a law needs to be interpreted to "fit" the desired outcome of a case by an "activist" judge, then the law was faulty in the first place and should be changed for future cases. (Just wondering and asking!)
If a law is not unclear, and a judge chooses to ignore it or give it an entirely unreasonable interpretation, then there's a serious problem. If the legislature spots a judge doing this, they'll make the law as clear as possible so that the problem won't happen again. And the activist judge's decision is likely to be overturned on appeal, anyway.
Just for background info, here are the first few articles of the Louisiana Civil Code:
Art. 1 Sources of law: The sources of law are legislation and custom.
Art. 2 Legislation: Legislation is a solemn expression of legislative will.
Art. 3 Custom: Custom results from practice repeated for a long time and generally accepted as having acquired the force of law. Custom may not abrogate legislation.
Art. 4 Absence of legislation or custom: When no rule for a particular situation can be derived from legislation or custom, the court is bound to proceed according to equity. To decide equitably, resort is made to justice, reason, and prevailing usages.
At least he is honest. Judicial activism is no problem to him. But we need to make it his problem.
Who is this guy that he thinks, as a socialist liberal, that he knows anything about what "judicial activism" is?
He is off his nut about a mile!
Judicial activism, appears to be to Breyer, reversing prior precedents like Roe, the banning of sodomy laws, et al.
Judicial activism, in my opinion, is judges making or writing law from the bench. A judicial activist judge salivates when the Congress writes and passes vague legislation that leave people guessing, because he or she gets to flesh it out when the people in the society litigate it in court.
What if a judge were to apply this to a situation where the "victim" was killed while attacking the defendant with a knife. Straight application of the law would not allow the jury to consider self defense.
If the judge says that there is no way the legislature intended the law to be applied in such a strict manner, is he guilty of judicial activism?
Throughout American history there has always been a body of law called the common law.
It simply means judge made law. As a matter of rhetoric it sounds bad. But it has not always been viewed that way.
In the political arena we say judges should not make law, but only apply and interpret the law. What we really mean is that judges should not make social policy while using the Constitution as a pretext. When a court interprets a Constitutional provision or statute, it is in essence making law. The way in which it is construed is binding on lower courts.
The point is that one must make a distinction between political rhetoric and legal reality. I hope this helps somewhat.
Breyer is disingenious and he loves the sound of his own voice that's why he can't get enough of the lecture circuit and being on TV. I've never seen a justice so in love with himself.
Like Dredd Scott?
I know that the thirteenth ammendment nullified it, but where does the USSC stand on their "precedent?"
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