Via IBD, Thomas Sowell on empathy in the courts. [This is Part II of three parts -- see above for the other two articles.]
Justice's Job Is To Apply Law, Not Empathy
[...]When Dr. Sowell speaks, no further comments are needed.
Justice Holmes saw his job to be "to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not."
That was because the law existed for the citizens, not for lawyers or judges, and the citizen had to know what the rules were, in order to obey them.
He said: "Men should know the rules by which the game is played. Doubt as to the value of some of those rules is no sufficient reason why they should not be followed by the courts."
Legislators existed to change the law.
After a lunch with Judge Learned Hand, as Holmes was departing in a carriage to return to work, Judge Hand said to him: "Do justice, sir. Do justice."
Holmes had the carriage stopped. "That is not my job," he said. "My job is to apply the law."
[...]
4 comments:
Applying the law (i.e. the Constitution plus precedents) to specific cases is also interpreting the law. The result (another precedent) then affects the law by becoming part of the law.
So it's a bit more complicated than just "applying" the law.
It is to be hoped that Justices of the Supreme Court are up-to-date on precedents and take them into consideration when applying the law.
What the article says, is that personal feelings aka empathy have no place in the courts and IMO they are right.
The Constitution says we are all equal under the law. Without that everything this country stands for in down the drain.
I hate to be cynical (er, that's a lie - I love to be cynical), but we've never been equal under the law and never will be. Slaves and women were unequal at the founding and now every group is treated differently.
Politics is simply about stealing from each other without violence while banding together for protection from external threats.
Not even I'm that cynical and I've been at it a lot longer than you.
Maybe we haven't achieved perfection, but we've come a long way since the bad old days when women and blacks were chattel.
I'd rather not institutionalize preferences and then put Justices into place to rule for or against cases based on those preferences for forty years or more into the future?
This article was the 2nd of three. Check the post above for the other two.
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