Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that congressional critics of the Court's use of foreign law were indirectly to blame for a death threat she had received

* Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that congressional critics of the Court's use of foreign law were indirectly to blame for a death threat she had received. Her target: a proposed resolution by Rep. Tom Feeney (R., Fla.). That resolution is no bomb-throwing exercise. If enacted, it would express the sense of Congress that when the Court is trying to figure out the meaning of the Constitution, it should consult foreign law only when foreign law has some bearing on the original understanding of the Constitution.

That position is entirely defensible. Former justice Sandra Day O'Connor, meanwhile, gave a speech warning that attempts to reduce judicial power could over time lead to dictatorship. That is true, even as it is true that acquiescence in judicial seizures of power could result over time in judicial dictatorship. Sensible political commentary does not traffic in this kind of highly abstract slippery-slopism. And how are we to distinguish between illegitimate and worthy restrictions on judicial power? O'Connor says that she knows what's illegitimate when she sees it. That is a perfect expression of the willful jurisprudence that she can, thankfully, no longer practice. What both these episodes show is that some justices have developed an unhealthy regard for their own imagined prerogatives, which apparently include immunity from criticism.

COPYRIGHT 2006 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning