Scalia: Foreign law isn’t our Law
God Bless Antonin Scalia
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.
Scalia promised to be noncontroversial but frequently used the example of Lawrence v. Texas, a Houston case in which he disagreed with the majority that struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law. Scalia complained that foreign laws were cited in that case.
Scalia was typically evangelical in his advocacy of “originalism,” or strictly adhering to what the Constitutional authors meant more than 200 years ago. He criticized those who see the Constitution as an evolving or “living document” that adapts to the times.
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.”
I have been arguing this very thing since I have been at SAB. 1. It is a violation of the oath of a Justice to doing anything but determine if laws or governmet policies are or are not Constitutional as that document was orginally written. 2. They are not permitted to consider foreign laws as a means of interpreting our Constitution.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6117982.html
