Former Justice O’Connor: Courts Should Follow Precedent
I have a hard time understanding why anyone would try to claim that this judicial philosophy is good for our country. Unless that person were endorsing the philosophy for political expediency in terms of maintaining the status quo (see: abortion).
For me, the proper judicial philosophy to have is one that recognizes the intent of the founders, and the myriad of subsequent legislators who have had the honor of writing our laws, over all else. For what else should a law mean other than what it was intended to mean? The founders never intended to legalize abortion (as an example) with the constitution, yet unelected judges have decided that the document they did does legalize it despite any evidence to prove that this was their intent.
If a person who has the honor to sit on the high court feels that a previously-made decision by a lower federal court, or even past SCOTUS justices, is outside the intent of the original authors of a given law then that person has an obligation, a duty to overturn it.
Because it is not the place of judges to settle sticky legal or social issues like abortion or gay marriage or gun rights for us. It is their duty to apply the solutions thought up by our elected representatives to a given situation.
While that may be an inconvenient philosophy for certain political activists, it is the way our system of government was intended to be run.
Graeme
likwidshoe
Bullwinkle
robert108
CatMow
keith_glory2
Move_Zig
watashiwa
Rodney Graves
