A Quote by Lamar S. Smith

Judges should interpret the law, not make it.

Lamar S. Smith

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Interpret Judges Law Make Should Should I

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Lamar S. Smith
American - Politician
Born: November 19, 1947

In our system of government, the judicial and legislative branches have different roles. Judges are not politicians. Judges must decide cases, not champion causes. Judges must settle legal disputes, not pursue agendas. Judges must interpret and apply the law, not make the law.

Orrin Hatch

Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that's not what any of us should want from our judges.

Chuck Schumer

Judges should decide legal disputes. Judges should not make law.

Joseph Wapner

Our role as judges is to interpret the law.

Thomas Hardiman

The Supreme Court should interpret the law, not make the law.

Mike Parson

We must use a judicial, rather than a political, standard to evaluate [a nominee's] fitness for the Supreme Court. That standard must be based on the fundamental principle that judges interpret and apply but do not make law.

Orrin Hatch

The Judge does not make the law. It is people that make the law. Therefore if a law is unjust, and if the Judge judges according to the law, that is justice, even if it is not just.

Alan Paton

In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.

Thomas Hardiman

If people want to change the law, they should vote so that we can appoint pro-life judges. I believe the law should be changed.

Michael T. Flynn

I don't think the question is if should we have a shield law. I think the question is what kind of shield law we should have. Yes, I'd like to see a federal shield law, but if and only if it provides genuine safeguards and doesn't green-light prosecutors and judges and litigants from going after the press and getting things to which they should not be entitled. It's not a simple kind of litmus test.

Ted Gup

Judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views.

Neil Gorsuch

Like the vast majority of Americans, I've opposed same-sex marriage, but I've also opposed unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference. Americans are a tolerant, generous, and kind people. We all oppose bigotry and disparagement. But the debate over same-sex marriage is not a debate over tolerance. It is a debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage and it is a debate about activist judges who make up the law rather than interpret the law.

Mitt Romney

In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.

Andrew Jackson

Courts should interpret the law but leave elected lawmakers to create it.

Dominic Raab

Conservatives . . . may decide to join the game and seek activist judges with conservative views. Should that come to pass, those who have tempted the courts to political judging will have gained nothing for themselves but will have destroyed a great and essential institution. . . . There are only two sides. Either the Constitution and statutes are law, which means their principles are known and control judges, or they are malleable texts that judges may rewrite to see that particular groups or political causes win.

Robert Bork

A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law.

Brett Kavanaugh

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