SCOTUS and foreign law

Merlin1047

Senior Member
Mar 28, 2004
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Is this in our future if the asses on the SCOTUS who seek to use foreign law in their decision making have their way?

The Passion of Justice Ginsberg

http://www.brassknuckles.net/

..."[U.S. Supreme Court Justice] Ruth Bader Ginsberg gave a speech defending the Supreme Court's use of foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution," National Review notes in an editorial...

-- from the Washington Times.

By all means, let's bow to the superior wisdom of Mrs. Ginsberg and look abroad for constitutional guidance. What could it hurt? Well, let's check the record.

...A 42-year-old German man who confessed to killing, dismembering and eating another man who he said agreed to the grisly act was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison...
A German court convicted Armin Meiwes of manslaughter on Friday, ruling he had no "base motives" in the crime and sparing him a murder conviction...

They said he filmed himself dismembering the victim before he ate him so he could "admire himself as a human butcher."

... But Meiwes' lawyer argued that the slaying was a "homicide on demand." He said it was a form of mercy killing – because the victim gave his consent to be killed and eaten...

Brandes had travelled from Berlin in reply to an internet advertisement seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption."

... "For him, it was a nice death."

-- cite

...Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform...

-- cite

...Ahmad Turki al-Saab and two other Shiite Isma'ilis were arrested after talking with a Wall Street Journal reporter about the April 2000 confrontation between Saudi Arabian security forces and members of the Shiite Isma'ili community in Najran province. All three remain in prison...

-- cite

RCL opines:

What's troubling is that judges and the judiciary will be the sole arbiters of which foreign laws will impact American jurisprudence. The people, who through their legislators are responsible for making American laws, will have no say in which foreign laws are employed. There is no mechanism for any legislative control of which foreign laws are used.

If I understand this correctly, in essence, there will be two sets of laws. One will contain laws created by domestic legislation. The second will be foreign laws, of which the domestic legislative branch will have no part of creating. For all intents and purposes, they are introduced into our legal system ex nihilo.

The judiciary has sole proprietorship over the foreign set. The relationship between the two sets will be one-way, the foreign laws impacting the domestic as deemed appropriate by the judiciary.

If I was a lawyer or constitutional scholar, as opposed to my current incarnation as a mouth-breathing redstater, I think that this arrangement might disturb me.
 

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