Posted by
Bob Wood aka TrekTek on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 2:03:49 AM
Scalia: Foreign law isn't ours
| Quote: (bold-face mine) |
Judges who use foreign laws to interpret the U.S. Constitution are rewriting it rather than respecting its founders, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a roomful of judges and top lawyers in Houston on Monday night.
"I fear the courts' use of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution will continue at an accelerated pace," the 72-year-old conservative jurist said...
He told the 50 tables of lawyers that when judges use foreign laws or even U.S. legislative history, they are straying from their true purpose. He said judges do it to expand their own power because they wrongly consider "the views of all segments of mankind" and to make it appear they have something to rely upon.
Scalia said some leeway can be found even sticking only with the Constitutional text.
"It doesn't mean you can't twist the Constitution," he said lightly. "You just do it the good old-fashioned way: You just lie about it." |
U.S. legislative history? Isn't that what the lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee (both Democrats and Republicans) call "stare decisis" (sp?) and insist upon from all appointees?
I have always thought that logic was stupid. How can one base a good legal decision (interpretation) on a bad historical legal precedent and expect to come up with the correct interpretation?
Isn't that sort of like throwing out all of the math tables and replacing them starting with 1+1=3 and expecting to get the correct answer to any math problem?
But, then, I am an engineer... I would love to hear from some lawyers on this...