Posted on 05/10/2009 3:33:46 AM PDT by MartinaMisc
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
There are biblical echoes in the wording of that oath - a reminder that the judge's obligation to decide cases on the basis of fact and law, without regard to the litigants' wealth or fame or social status, is a venerable moral principle.
"You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike," says Moses in Deuteronomy, instructing the Israelite judges. "You shall not distort justice; you shall not respect persons, and you shall not take a bribe."
Elsewhere they are reminded that it is not only the rich they are forbidden to favor. "Neither shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute," Exodus firmly warns. Judges may not bend the law, not even to help the underprivileged.
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
The concept of blind justice goes way back. Even the Bible has prohibitions on showing favoritism for rich OR poor. I wish more Americans understood how serious this is. Once you have judges ruling based on empathy for one side or the other, we have chaos. Every ruling would be a literal crap shoot. Although individual outcomes may seem just, the net effect would a severe drain on our civil society. Essentially, we would be well on the way to becoming a third world country.
Even before I joined the Navy, We had a few shows like Judge Whopner, Nowadays we have judge Judy and the like.
To many on the sidelines these judges seem to be fair, and to be fair to the telivision judges they do seem to try to invoke a sense of fairness. but this is only at the local level.
Judicial activisim that inflences real law is one of the greatest threats that any republic has ever known.
It’s simple math.
Today the Legislative branch now gives more power to the Executive, Methinks a recipie for doom.
It’s Congress’s fault too for churning out more barf than it could ever hope to digest. That begs for a huge bureaucracy to carry it all out.
I'd call it a devastating article - but what would be devastating will be to have a judiciary which lives down to Obama's, and Big Journalism's, expectations for it.
It does not make sense that the judiciary is such a mess. Republicans have been in control for over 20 years of the last 30 years. Democrats really have not been president that much in recent times. One term in the seventies and a double term in the nineties. Democrats had no president in the 80’s at all. Republicans have chosen 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices. There is really no excuse for the judiciary to be such a mess.
Mistakes committed by Ignorance in a virtuous Disposition,
would never be of such fatal Consequence to the Publick
Weal, as the Practices of a Man whose Inclinations led
him to be corrupt, and had great Abilities to manage,
and multiply, and defend his Corruptions.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift(I:6;7)
Republicans bat far better than Democrats (the Rats are near .000) but the tendency of these lifetime appointment courts is to slide leftwards. Maybe it is the nature of the beast.
It does not make sense that the judiciary is such a mess. Republicans have been in control for over 20 years of the last 30 years. Democrats really have not been president that much in recent times. One term in the seventies and a double term in the nineties. Democrats had no president in the 80’s at all. Republicans have chosen 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices. There is really no excuse for the judiciary to be such a mess.Republicans bat far better than Democrats (the Rats are near .000) but the tendency of these lifetime appointment courts is to slide leftwards. Maybe it is the nature of the beast.
It is a common fallacy to simply point to the control of the WH and think the issue ends there.That reckons without the "borking" phenomenon - which is always a factor when a Republican makes a nomination, even if the Democrats are not nominally in charge in Congress. Arlen Specter was the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee for many years . . .
Speaking of which, now that there is a vacancy on SCOTUS the issue of who becomes Ranking Republican on Judiciary takes on more interest.
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