A Quote by Neil Gorsuch
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.
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Judicial abuse occurs when judges substitute their own political views for the law.
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.
We do not need a heavy theoretical thumb on the scales. What's important is how the traditional sources of law and legal interpretation - text, structure, history, canons of interpretation, precedent, and other well-established tools of the judicial craft - are prioritized, weighted, and applied.
Judges certainly have political connections and strong political views, but that doesn't mean they can't rise above politics when they hear cases. We expect them to, and the law presumes they do.
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.
We then need to consider carefully how the E.U. law that is going to be imported into our own law will operate. Its processes and interpretation have always been different from our own domestic law.
The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.
Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.
Supreme Court nominees should know without any doubt that their job is not to impose their own personal opinions of what is right and wrong, but to say what the law is, rather than what they personally think the law ought to be.
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.
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.
It is far more important the law should be administered with absolute integrity, than that in this case or in that the law should be a good law or a bad one.
I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.
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.
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.
Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law.
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