Judge Jones, who issued yesterdays decision overturning Pennsylvanias marriage ban, had come to public attention back in 2005 for his decision banning the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in Pennsylvania schools. He was accused then of being a judicial activist for his failure to let the wishes of a majority overrule the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. A year later, in remarks he gave at Bennington College, he spoke about The Myth of Activist Judges, words that are just as relevant today. ....The framers of the Constitution, in their almost infinite wisdom, designed the legislative and executive branches under Articles I and II to be directly responsive to the public will. They designed the judiciary, under Article III, to be responsive not to the public will–in effect to be a bulwark against public will at any given time–but to be responsible to the Constitution and the laws of the United States. That distinction, just like the role of precedent, tends to be lost in the analysis of judges’ decisions, including my decision. I joked in the beginning about being an activist judge; had I decided this case in a different way, had I disregarded the facts, had I disregarded existing precedent, had I ‘taken one for the team,’ as it were, I would have truly been an activist judge in that case. The one thing I want you to remember, if I leave you with nothing else tonight, is that the Rule of Law is not a conservative or liberal value. It is assuredly not a Republican or Democratic value either; rather, it is an American value….The challenge for our time, then, as it relates to the cherished system of justice created by our Founders, is to ensure that threats against judges–and by implication to judicial independence–are ratcheted down, and that our independent judiciary is thus preserved. collegenews.org/editorials/2006/the-myth-of-activist-judges.html
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 18:49:12 +0000
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