The Empath
President Obama on his Supreme Court pick:
I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with peoples hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.
Even if there's some statute out there that requires judges have empathy (rather than, you know, follow the law as written), how does that help? Every case has two sides, and they'd both like empathy.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:17 AM
6 Comments:
You believe "following the law as written" is an objective standard?
Often the government is one of the parties -- they get no empathy.
Empathy means empathy for the little people, of course. What, you think that the rich deserve empathy? I heard that they pay almost no taxes.
Follow the law as written is a better lodestar than try to get to results you feel are just based on your personal understanding of the world.
By the way, if I were a legislator, I bet I wuld feel that following laws as written is an objective standard.
So you think the "law as written" is completely clear as it applies to any situation? How about "Torture is prohibited"
It clearly isn't- America is not a Code country. Judges interpret general laws in their application to specific situations. Pretending one form of interpretation more closely follows the "law as written" is a complete and utter fallacy.
"Pretending one form of interpretation more closely follows the 'law as written' is a complete and utter fallacy."
I don't oppose what is often called judicial activism. Far from it. The Constitution and many statutaes have vague words and phrases that I'd be glad to see judges apply in many instances against an encroaching government. In fact, I think they've often been derelict in failing to do so.
But that doesn't mean words are meaningless. It's still the job of the judge to try to apply the law as written, and not replace what the legislators wanted with her personal sense of justice. It's also essential a judge not put her thumb on the scale to favor any class of plaintiff or defendant (other than is required by law, such as a standard like "reasonable doubt.") A judge who feels the most important thing is an opinion arrive at a result that comports with the judge's idea of what's "fair," or "good for society," is one who's failing to do her job.
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