Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveZ
..."legislating" from the bench should not happen. But it does, in the sense that ambiguous legislation runs rampant, and courts have often provided their interpretation of verbal soup. Usually, those interpretations tick someone off, hopefully enough for the legislature to get off its duff and clean up the statutes so courts don't find themselves in having to make judicial silk purses from legislative sow's ears.
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Well stated, Steve. Too many people fail to accurately assess what "legislating from the bench" really means. Maybe we should ask them what they think should happen when cases are presented for adjudication based on contradictory, unclear, poorly-written, confusing laws? Last time I checked, an answer of "I don't know--the law is too confusing" wasn't an option for a Supreme Court justice. It would be even worse if the Court refused to hear cases where the underlying laws were faulty, unclear and inconsistent. Would the purists be happy if the Supreme Court only accepted cases that were easily adjudicated, leaving those based on imperfect law unsettled?
By definition,
ALL Supreme Court justices have to occasionally "make law" when the legislators empowered to do so fail in their responsibilities. That's completely consisent with the Constitution, I think.