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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (54997)	5/28/2009 6:45:08 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Empathy doesn't automatically lead to any particular conclusion, either political or judicial. Calling one party the party of empathy, or line of constitutional interpretation the empathic one is rather unreasonable. You can have empathy or sympathy for the victim of a crime and perhaps the prosecutor, or you can have empathy for the defendant. The same applies in civil suits to the plaintiff and the defendant. There is a reason for the statues of blind justice, and for the idea being considered positive, even vital. The courts job isn't to decide which person is better, or which side of the case has acted better in other areas outside of the issue under consideration by the court. The courts job is to apply the law to the case. If the courts can create law, rather than just apply it, they take the legislative function and add it to the judicial. I'm not quite sure I would call them dictators, presumably they aren't also grabbing executive power and I can't think of anyone I'd called a dictator without that power, but it creates a dangerous situation where the people can't rely on what the law says, instead they have to guess as to the possible emotional state of the judge. Of course there are bad laws, but laws are not permanently engraved in to stone, they can be changed.