O'Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law
Justice says, 'The impressions we create in this world are important'
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Posted: October 31, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2003 WorldNetDaily.com
American courts need to pay more attention to international legal decisions to
help create a more favorable impression abroad, said U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor at an awards dinner in Atlanta.
Sandra Day O'Connor
"The impressions we create in this world are important, and they can leave
their mark," O'Connor said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The 73-year-old justice and some of her high court colleagues have made similar
appeals to foreign law, not only in speeches and interviews, but in some of
their legal opinions. Her most recent public remarks came at a dinner Tuesday
sponsored by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for International Studies.
The occasion was the center's presentation to her of its World Justice Award.
O'Connor told the audience, according to the Atlanta paper, the U.S. judicial
system generally gives a favorable impression worldwide, "but when it comes to
the impression created by the treatment of foreign and international law and
the United States court, the jury is still out."
She cited two recent Supreme Court cases that illustrate the increased
willingness of U.S. courts to take international law into account in its
decisions.
In 2002, she said, the high court regarded world opinion when it ruled
executing the mentally retarded to be unconstitutional.
American diplomats, O'Connor added, filed a court brief in that case about the
difficulties their foreign missions faced because of U.S. death penalty
practices.
More recently, the Supreme Court relied partly on European Court decisions in
its decision to overturn the Texas anti-sodomy law.
"I suspect," O'Connor said, according to the Atlanta daily, "that over time we
will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international
and foreign courts in examining domestic issues."
Doing so, she added, "may not only enrich our own country's decisions, I think
it may create that all important good impression."
In July, O'Connor made a rare television news show appearance with Supreme
Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer in which they were asked whether the U.S.
Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will
continue to be relevant in an age of globalism.
Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, Breyer took
issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who, in a dissent in the Texas sodomy
ruling, contended the views of foreign jurists are irrelevant under the U.S.
Constitution.
Breyer had held that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that
homosexuals had a fundamental right to privacy in their sexual behavior showed
the Supreme Court's earlier decision to the contrary was unfounded in the
Western tradition.
"We see all the time, Justice O'Connor and I, and the others, how the world
really – it's trite but it's true – is growing together," Breyer said.
"Through commerce, through globalization, through the spread of democratic
institutions, through immigration to America, it's becoming more and more one
world of many different kinds of people. And how they're going to live together
across the world will be the challenge, and whether our Constitution and how it
fits into the governing documents of other nations, I think will be a challenge
for the next generations."
In his dissent in the Texas case, Scalia said: "The court's discussion of these
foreign views (ignoring, of course, the many countries that have retained
criminal prohibitions on sodomy) is ... meaningless dicta. Dangerous dicta,
however, since this court ... should not impose foreign moods, fads, or
fashions on Americans," he said quoting the 2002 Foster v. Florida case.
Scalia's scathing critique of the 6-3 sodomy ruling was unusual in its
bluntness.
"Today's opinion is the product of a court, which is the product of a
law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual
agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists
directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to
homosexual conduct," he wrote. Later he concluded: "This court has taken sides
in the culture war."
The current court is split between Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence
Thomas and Scalia, who tend to hold the traditional constitutionalist approach
to rulings, and the majority of O'Connor, Breyer, Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginzburg,
David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, who tend to believe in the concept of a
"living Constitution" subject to changes in public opinion and interpretation.
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| User: "WH" |
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| Title: Re: Oust her from the Supreme Court |
31 Oct 2003 05:03:51 AM |
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"TonyZ2001" <tonyz2001@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031031045030.18482.00000004@mb-m03.aol.com...
O'Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law
Justice says, 'The impressions we create in this world are important'
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Posted: October 31, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2003 WorldNetDaily.com
American courts need to pay more attention to international legal
decisions to
help create a more favorable impression abroad, said U.S. Supreme Court
Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor at an awards dinner in Atlanta.
What a great idea. Then your reputation for being arrogant bastards might
lighten up a bit.
WH
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| User: "tw" |
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| Title: Re: Oust her from the Supreme Court |
31 Oct 2003 06:49:59 AM |
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"TonyZ2001" <tonyz2001@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031031045030.18482.00000004@mb-m03.aol.com...
Thank you for admitting that kind have no respect for International Law,
Tony.
No justice = no peace. A very old maxim.
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: Oust her from the Supreme Court |
31 Oct 2003 09:17:25 PM |
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In article <20031031045030.18482.00000004@mb-m03.aol.com>, (TonyZ2001) wrote:
O'Connor: U.S. must rely on foreign law
Justice says, 'The impressions we create in this world are important'
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Posted: October 31, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
2003 WorldNetDaily.com
American courts need to pay more attention to international legal decisions to
help create a more favorable impression abroad, said U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor at an awards dinner in Atlanta.
Why is cooperation such a terrible thing? The ability to be cooperative when
needed is an essential attribute!
Woods
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| User: "Cutecute" |
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| Title: Re: Oust her from the Supreme Court |
31 Oct 2003 11:44:17 PM |
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foolish ppl u will end up like the roman when u do dis. Damn foolish judge
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