Justice Kennedy was the keynote speaker at the annual Fairfax Bar Association Jurisprudence Award dinner, which was very well attended, in part because Kennedy was speaking, and in part because the awardee was a very popular retiring judge, Rosemarie Annunziata.
His theme was judicial independence, and he talked about how he meets judges, lawyers and jurists from all over the world, that envy our constitution, and our legal system. Some very heart warming anecdotes.
The one I liked best was when he was attending an EU workshop for judges on jurisprudence being held at a lawschool in Poland, and the law school asked if he would speak to a class of incoming freshmen -- which, as you know, means kids fresh out of high school, since law school for them is a college curriculum.
After the speech, there was a question and answer session.
The first student asked him about separation of powers, that the judiciary was a check on the executive and the legislative functions, but what was the check on the judiciary?
The second student asked him a question I can't recall, but just as tough.
The third student asked him whether John Marshall's opinions were popular in his lifetime.
Kennedy says, he asked them, what is this? These are just former high school students, they haven't even started law school yet, where are these questions coming from?
But it turns out that in Poland they dreamed of having their own constitution for 30 years, so they studied ours.
I have to wonder, now that I read of CIA kidnapping of the citizens of foreign nations on their own native soil, and secret gulags, whether anybody really believes in American exceptionalism anymore.
I know my own faith is so shaken that I can't even call it faith anymore.
I believe in the ideals but what good are ideals and principles if they are treated like trash paper to be discarded when inconvenient?
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But -- before you ask -- while I do not subscribe to Tom Delay's ideas about Congressional oversight over the judiciary, and I do not subscribe to the idea of putting judges through the meat grinder before appointing them -- I agree with the Polish student who asked, "what is the check on the judiciary?" There is none. And that loophole has been taken advantage of by people with no respect for democracy, who use it as a means of achieving their own personal agendas.
I regret that Kennedy doesn't like us peasants talking about this -- and I believe that he probably realizes that judicial independence is not an unalloyed good. Power corrupts. No matter how pure you think you are.
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Edit again -- the only check on the judiciary is the Constitution itself. And if you can make it into anything you want it to mean, it's no check at all. |
