Monday, April 29, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Chief Justice Roberts

OCTOBER 2, 2005 --

The Statue of Justice is represented by a woman with a blindfold and holding evenly-balanced scales.

It is not clear that there is consensus in the political sector that Justice should wear a blindfold and hold balanced scales.

Certainly questions from senators that would try to learn how a Supreme Court nominee would rule on issues before the Supreme Court do not reflect the traditional notion of justice -- that the outcome of a given case depends on the presentation of the case -- that is to say, that the outcome is a result, not a result from the outset.

Many years ago, Dean Roscoe Pound wrote, in "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law" that most "problems of jurisprudence come down to a fundamental one of rule and discretion...."

He concluded this book, based on lectures given in 1921, by suggesting that we can have reasonable government
programs that do not reduce "the individual man to passive obedience or to parasitism, nor result in "the omnicompetent state."

It is the sense of LPR that liberals, today, regard legislatures as law-making factories to add more rules for ordinary citizens to live by.

But ours is a constitutional system that was created with built-in limits on government-- checks and balances.
It is the responsibility of the courts to follow the law, not to expand it to serve political
aims.

The new chief justice will serve the country admirably by demonstrating faith in the governmental system established by the Founding Fathers and following a
philosophy of law that reflects wisdom, common sense, with the results known at the end of the case, not at the beginning.

The Founding Fathers did not establish an "omnicompetent state" and they had confidence in the commitment of our people to freedom--not to passivity.

The response, of late, to Supreme Court appointments is to examine if the individual is "conservative" or "liberal." LPR would prefer that the focus be on the
nominee's judicial temperament and wisdom individual.

The new chief justice indicated, in his nomination hearing he that he passes the test of judicial ability and wisdom, the true measure, LPR believes, if the Senate should consent to a judicial nomination sent to it by the president.

Justice Roberts is the youngest Chief Justice since the great John Marshall. The new chief could not have a better role model for common sense and wisdom in
constitutional interpretation and legal philosophy than Chief Justice John Marshall.