Justice O’Connor Needs to Retire NOW
Thursday, October 28th, 2004I think that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has let her position of “swing vote” go to her head.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor extolled Wednesday the growing role of international law in U.S. courts, saying judges would be negligent if they disregarded its importance in a post-Sept. 11 world of heightened tensions.
As I recall from government class, the job of a Supreme Court Justice is to enforce the provisions of the United States Constitution. Period. What people do in other countries is irrelevant and immaterial.
O’Connor said the Supreme Court is increasingly taking cases that demand a better understanding of foreign legal systems. A recent example was last term’s terror cases involving the U.S. detention of foreign-born detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, she said.
“International law is no longer a specialty. …It is vital if judges are to faithfully discharge their duties,” O’Connor told attendees at a ceremony dedicating Georgetown’s new international law center.
“Since Sept. 11, 2001, we’re reminded some nations don’t have the rule of law or (know) that it’s the key to liberty,” she said.
Again, the law in other countries is irrelevant; the justices are supposed to apply and interpret the U.S. Constitution. While it may be nice to have an understanding of what goes on in the judicial systems of other countries, what goes on over there should not intrude upon the work of the Supreme Court.
Many, many people have fought and died to allow the citizens of the United States to live by the principles constructed in the Constitution. If the justices of the Supreme Court start to usurp these principles by letting “international law” creep into their decision making process, they diminish that sacrifice.
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