WP: Scalia Tells Congress to Mind Its Own Business

[DeepModem Mom]

Scalia Tells Congress to Mind Its Own Business
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006; Page A19

Justice Antonin Scalia rebuked fellow conservatives on Capitol Hill yesterday, saying they have gone too far in trying to prevent the Supreme Court from using foreign law in its constitutional rulings.

Scalia dissented vigorously from the court's recent decisions that invoked foreign law to help strike down the death penalty for juveniles and laws against consensual homosexual conduct. In Congress, conservative Republicans responded angrily to the rulings and introduced bills that would either condemn or ban the court's use of foreign legal authorities.

But in his speech to a National Italian American Foundation luncheon attended by several House members, Scalia said, in effect, that he does not need any help.

"It's none of your business," he said, referring to Congress. "No one is more opposed to the use of foreign law than I am, but I'm darned if I think it's up to Congress to direct the court how to make its decisions."

The proposed legislation "is like telling us not to use certain principles of logic," he said, adding: "Let us make our mistakes just as we let you make yours."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/18/AR2006051801961.html?nav=most_emailed

[xchrom]

1. scalia = tapeworm sucking cat piss.

[Hand]

6. Ahhh... lovely, lovely.

For years I've sought the right words to descrbe this creature! :rofl:

[W_HAMILTON]

2. LOL

Great approach to politics! :sarcasm:

"Let us make our mistakes just as we let you make yours."

Jesus Christ, our nation is in the shitter.

[leesa]

3. This is good. A rift between the RW judges and the RW Congress.

Of course, the bad part is that they are mostly unqualified idiots, but that's America today.

[wordpix2]

13. very good, indeed, RW is imploding worse than ever as we approach election

[AzDar]

4. No, we can't as a nation, AFFORD any more of your mistakes, ya

Fat Bastard. For the 2000 'election decision' alone, the S.C. should be swept clean and begun anew.

[woodsprite]

5. Ruh, roh - Someone doesn't like being told what to do.

Maybe he's still ticked that Roberts got the nod for CJ instead of himself. ;)

[Zorra]

7. What, is Congress preventing Scalia from using Stalinist legal

precedents regarding illegal searches and spying in his interpretations of our Constitution?
:nopity:

[Posteritatis]

14. Or Canadian Trudeau-era ones in future administrations..

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate here.

International legal precedent pops into many countries' rulings on one issue or another, surprisingly enough. You'd probably be hard pressed to find many developed countries which didn't at least occasionally decide cases based on rulings handed down abroad. This used to mainly happen on trade issues, but as the article implies things like human rights and other such affairs are coming into play more often. It's definately nothing new, in any case; has been going on for years.

And Congress attempting to regulate how the Judiciary is allowed to decide and rule in cases gives me the creeps, to put it lightly. Separation of powers is a Good Thing. I can deal with legislative/executive fusion of powers (I live in a country where it's the norm, after all), but merging either of those two with the courts? Nononono.

[pnwmom]

19. The issue was execution for juvenile offenders. The court,

in a 5 - 4 decision, ruled against such executions, relying in part on world precedent. Scalia disagreed with the Court's decision. But he also believes that Congress should not be instructing the Court into how to read the law.

[Evergreen Emerald]

8. Activist judges?

It is further example of this administration's desire to destroy the balance of power created with the three equal branches of government.

[shadowknows69]

9. Three branches of Government

Seperate but...well, seperate.

[Demeter]

10. This Is Truly Bizarre

But then lately anything involving Scalia has been truly bizarre. Ever since he started quacking, his "unique" interpretation of the world, humanity and the law has been startling and very public.

He is third on my impeachment list. Are there any out-and-out criminal activities we can identify as his responsibility, besides the stolen election? Although I'll grant you, that's big enough to take down Mr. Big, it would be nice to find something he is solely responsible for, not as part of a conspiracy.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Is he going nutty, maybe -- senile? nt

[Demeter]

12. I Have Wondered That, But He's Too Sharo and Edgy

I think he's just the meanest son-of-a-bitch to come down the pike in a long time.

[pnwmom]

20. It doesn't seem bizarre to me at all. In fact, I'm happy he's

spoken out. In a case involving whether it is constitutional to execute someone for a crime he committed as a juvenile, the Court, in a 5-4 decision, relied in part on foreign legal opinion.
Justice Scalia at the time strongly disagreed with the outcome of the case.

But now he is arguing, as he should, for the right of the Courts, not the Congress, to decide cases as they see fit -- as they always have. In other words, he's arguing for the separation of powers. This is vital, if our democracy is to have any future.

[TheCowsCameHome]

15. Psssst. Hey Tony. Cool it with the tough talk. Yaknow what I mean?

Dose guys in the blue suits ain't likin' that.

[sandnsea]

16. Lie down with federalists

get up with no power. You shoulda knowed better Nino. You get to chalk it up to a mistake, we have to live with the strangulation of our civil rights for decades.

[pnwmom]

17. It kills me to say it, but this time Scalia may be right.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was recently criticized by the right wing for using foreign precedents. Oddly enough, Scalia was one of those criticizing her. But apparently he believes that this should be left to the judiciary to decide, not Congress.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg

On March 1, 2005, in the case of Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court (in an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy) ruled in a 5-4 decision that the Constitution forbids executing convicts who committed their crimes before turning 18. In addition to the fact that most states now prohibit executions in such cases, the majority opinion reasoned that the United States was increasingly out of step with the world by allowing minors to be executed, saying "the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty."

Justice Antonin Scalia rejected that approach with strident criticism, saying that the justices' personal opinions and the opinions of "like-minded foreigners" should not be given a role in helping interpret the Constitution.

Ginsburg rejected that argument in a speech given about one month after Roper. "Judges in the United States are free to consult all manner of commentary," she said to several hundred lawyers, scholars, and other members of the American Society of International Law.<3> She cited several instances when the logic of foreign courts had helped untangle legal questions domestically, and of legislatures and courts abroad adopting U.S. law in return. Fears about relying too heavily on world opinion "should not lead us to abandon the effort to learn what we can from the experience and good thinking foreign sources may convey," Ginsburg told the audience.

In response to Roper and other recent decisions, several Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution declaring that the "meaning of the Constitution of the United States should not be based on judgments, laws, or pronouncements of foreign institutions unless such foreign judgments, laws or pronouncements inform an understanding of the original meaning of the Constitution of the United States." A similar resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate. In her speech, Ginsburg criticized the resolutions. "Although I doubt the resolutions will pass this Congress, it is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support," she said. "The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification," Ginsburg asserted. "Even more so today, the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world," she said. "What the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity."

[knight_of_the_star]

18. Ditto

Then again a broken clock is right twice a day. I shudder to imagine the next time I would actually agree with him on something.

[pnwmom]

21. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has also addressed this topic.

From the same WP article:

"Scalia's remarks came about three months after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of the use of foreign law, denounced members of Congress who oppose it, saying that their condemnation of the court might have contributed to Internet threats against the court by extremists.

"Though Scalia did not echo that sentiment, his comments showed that, for all their disagreements, he and his colleagues on the court have a shared institutional interest in judicial independence."

[genieroze]

22. I agree with him. Now that I said that

:puke: