what is a strict consitutionalist? YES i already looked it up and I AM SO CONFUSED!!?

Question

please help me by sharing your brief definition of a strict constitutionalist. thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

I am assuming your question refers to America. There is a division between those legal minds who think it is their duty to interpret the Constitution as it was fomulated and approved by the Founding Fathers and as it has been amended since, in a strict or fairly narrow way, and those who think that the Constitution is a developing instrument, that times change, and that legal interpretation has to take these changes into account. The first group tends to be conservative and the second liberal. Conservatives do not want judges to legislate from the bench, as they put it, and liberals think judicial interpretation of the Constitution and legislation one way to advance society. Let us take Roe.v.Wade, which made abortion legal. A strict constitutionalist may well have been opposed to that decision, and a flexible or liberal judge is likely to have welcomed it. These differences will play out in the Supreme Court, where two Justices (Roberts and Alito) have been appointed recently and who may alter the balance of the Court in the direction of strict constitutionality. Until her retirement, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor probably held the balance between the two groups on the Court. One other difference: a strict constructionist (another term in this debate) wishes to leave law-making to the legislature, believing that his business is to interpret the laws already in existence scrupulously. His liberal opponent wishes to use court rulings to make new laws indirectly, as through affirmative action in university admissions, which allows members of minorities to advance in life. The conservative may well believe that affirmative action gives people unfair preference and is detrimental to society in the long run. Justice Clarence Thomas is a good representative of the conservative view.

Answer 2

The best way to understand this is to think of a strict constitutionalist like a religious fundamentalist. A fundamentalist thinks that holy scripture is absolutely true and contains all knowledge needed to run your life and must be understood literally. Well a strict constitutionalist thinks of the constitution in much the same way a Christian fundamentalist thinks of the Bible or an Islamic fundamentalist thinks of the Koran. For a strict constitutionalist the constitution means exactly what it says and should not be creatively interpreted by the courts or anyone else. The wording of the constitution is thus, with its amendments, forever and firmly binding.