Anything wrong with Judicial Activism? Your opinion please....?

Answer 1

Opinions vary on this.

Judicial activism is when judges, while they do interprete the law to a certain degree, go a step farther and bring in society's view or the betterment of society based solely on their opinion...

I personally am anti-judicial activism because I think we need to have judges that follow the letter of the law without emotion and personal opinion.

Case in Point:
Several of the Supreme Court Justices (federal btw) were accused of judicial activism by Bush and then later by legal historians after their ruling on the sodomy case out of Texas.

For example, S.O'Connor's opinion actually blatantly stated that she was taking society's view and betterment into account in making her decision.

There was a half hour debate on a constitutional law show on PBS that went into depth on this and every one of those 'experts' clearly agreed on one thing... it was judicial activism. They just differed on whether she was right or wrong to do so.

It is completely different when a Supreme Court justice HAS to form an interpretation based on the constitution. That is their job. The difference is when they bring in (like O'Connor did) society's view, etc... They are not suppose to base any of their opinion on their own emotions or belief system.. but rather to interprete the law as it was written. Btw, judges do not make law. Supreme Court Justices only give us clarification. Additionally, they are suppose to go to previous precedents on cases, research the forefathers writings on issues and when all that fails (like no history on an issue), they are forced to give their own interpretations based on the LAW as they understand its MEANING.

Answer 2

Yes everything is wrong with Judicial Activism. A case should never be decided on the bias of a judge, which ever way the judge favors. We leave that process to the legislators, a group of people for which we the people have the right to elect, re-elect, or impeach. Judges are there simply to make a ruling based on the laws on the book, and if the law doesn't exist they make a ruling setting a statutory precedent, which is based on the roots of all law, first the Constitution of the US, and secondly the Constitution of the individual state. If a ruling is set which is in clear violation of either of these documents (particularly the US Constitution), the ruling can be over-thrown and appealed to the highest level (the Supreme Court of the US). Even they don't always get it right (usually because of Judicial Activism). The fact is that there is almost no way to get rid of it, because as long as politicians get to decide who the judges are, there will always be a bias.

Answer 3

Primarily in rebuttal to coragryph:

Of course there is such a thing as judicial activism. And activism is when the judges based their decision on their personal beliefs INSTEAD of the law. Ironically enough, Sen. John Kerry had a pretty good explanation for how to tell whether or not a judge is an activist. Last year during the Presidential debates the debate moderator asked both Bush and Kerry to explain what kind of Supreme Court Justices they plan on appointing if they're elected. Kerry's answer was that he believes in this principle: the hallmark of a good judge is one who, when you read their opinion explaining their decision, you can't tell whether the person who wrote it is a liberal or a conservative, you just know that that person is a good judge.

Read some judicial opinions and see for yourself. Regardless of whether or not those judges are "liberal," "conservative," or somewhere in-between, you can tell -- you can sense -- whether or not the writer is a good judge or is, instead, a lying hypocrite.

Answer 4

What is wrong with it is that it is not how our system is designed to operate. The sole purpose of the judicial branch is to interperet laws and statutes of the legislative branch on a consistent basis, nothing more nothing less.
Change the laws, or change the system. Judicial activism is an attempt at an end run around our laws.

Answer 5

Kelo is a good case/reason not to like judicial activism. Miranda v. Arizona and Brown v. Board are good reasons to like judicial activism.

Answer 6

coragraph is precisely correct in the first answer to this question. Judicial activism is a totally meaningless term. Those who challenge his response use more passion than precision in their agruments and are seriously deficient in their knowledge of Supreme Court history.

Answer 7

It's a meaningless term. Literally without meaning.

The term is used flippantly to describe any ruling that someone else doesn't like. It is used inconsistently, and usually without even bothering to read the underlying legal opinion. It is arm-chair quarterbacking, used solely to discredit a particular ruling that people don't like.

Judges make law. That's their job. It's been their job for centuries, since the origins of the common law system. Binding precedent on case interpretation is the way that the legal system functions. Without it, there is no way for courts to issue consistent rulings.

Answer 8

One man's judicial activism is another man's vanilla interpretation
of the statutes and Constitution.

Yes, we do tend to interpret things according to our own
beliefs. We can't help it.