Judiciary Day

Before I get started on my rant about two major judiciary occurances, an interesting short post about the unintended consequences of closing Guantanamo Bay.

So, two major announcements today from the land of the judicial branch of the American Government. First is that the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Prop 8, on a 6-1 basis. First off, I feel its a good sign that despite being subject to extreme pressure from the political establishment in California the court upheld the right of the people to amend their own constitution. The arguments brought forth by the varying lawyers opposed to Prop 8, particularly the idea that if a constitutional amendment violated a fundamental right then the court was bound to overturn Prop 8. Now, the utter ridiculousness of this argument should be immediately apparent. The California Constitution is the document which defines the fundamental rights of Californians. This isn’t the United Kingdom, or any other commonwealth country where there is a series of unwritten precedents that are consulted in the constitutional court. The simple fact is that roughly seven million Californians voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Whether you like that or not, that is now enshrined in the California constitution. If you want to change it, go to the voters, not the courts.

There’s another rant to be had about the whole gay marriage debate, but I think I will just leave it at this.

The second major happening was the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. Even though this nomination is to succeed Breyer, who has been one of the more activist judges on the bench, this is extremely disappointing, and indicative of just how the federal judiciary is going to be changed for the next four years. Rather than sober application of laws, empathy and subjectivity is going to be the primary determinant of how justices are to rule, creating laws in order to create more “social justice,” not, you know, whether someone has broken the law or whether a given law is ultimately lawful, or constitutional.

Case in point: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” – Sonia Sotomayor

This is completely and totally absurd. It should be utterly irrelevant in the judicial realm one’s life experiences. I’m willing to grant that ones life experiences would be important in the legislative process, but once that process is finished, than you want the most objective, even-handed person who is willing to ignore his or her personal convictions in order to deliver the most just ruling possible. She has admitted that she finds it impossible to be objective. *sighs* I don’t think I really need to say anything more.

~ by Mark on May 27, 2009.