Impeach Obama? No silly. Despite the disastrous course he’s plotting for the US such a notion is premature. But there’s one DC pol whose actions and words clear defy their oath of office – Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
At a recent symposium honoring her 15 years sitting on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg posited on conservatives opposing references to foreign legal decisions:
“I frankly don’t understand all the brouhaha lately from Congress and even from some of my colleagues about referring to foreign law,” Justice Ginsburg said in her comments on Friday.
…
Justice Ginsburg said the controversy was based on the misunderstanding that citing a foreign precedent means the court considers itself bound by foreign law as opposed to merely being influenced by such power as its reasoning holds.
“Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article written by a professor?” she asked.I’m no legal scholar, but let me take a stab. Any foreign court’s reasoning will not, for obvious reasons, be based on the United States Constitution. Nor will it be based on US case law. Therefore whatever “wisdom” the foreign judge may have used in his “reasoning” is irrelevant in US courts.
In other words, Ginsburg is looking to poach justification for legal reasoning that runs counter to our Constitution from foreign judges whose decisions are based on a completely different set of underlying assumptions. When the Constitution that has served our great nation since 1789 runs counter to her underlying political beliefs she just looks to a foreign precedent and says, “See, they know better.”
I suppose after fifteen years she’s forgotten the words (According to Title 28, Chapter I, Part 453 of the United States Code) she recited before taking her seat on the bench:
“I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as Supreme Court Justice under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
Of course, without years of legal training a layman like yours truly reads “the Constitution and laws of the United States” to mean just that. She should be impeached now before retiring from the bench so future nominees will understand that the SCOTUS is required to base their decisions on the laws of the US.
