Saturday, March 18, 2006

500th post

I have had a lot of hits lately, but not many comments....
Now it is your turn to say what is on your mind!!!

7 comments:

Jim said...

OK, here goes...

I have asked this question before here and on other blogs but never gotten an answer.

How do judges "legislate from the bench"?

I read about people complaining about judges who "legislate from the bench" and who call for replacing these judges and justices with judges who will let the people through their legislatures make law.

So how do judges "legislate from the bench"?

Anonymous said...

UWM got royally killed in that second round game.

Mike M said...

That's an easy answer: they order legislatures to pass new laws conforming to their interpretation of a case. In other words, they go beyond what the law IS, and tell us what the law SHOULD be.

Mike M said...

Oh, and for everyone out there in education, I found an interesting article about the "rest of the story" behind the movie, "Stand and Deliver". It's long, but well worth the read, and has some interesting insights into teachers' unions and public school bureaucracy.

http://analyticdisturbance.blogspot.com/2006/03/rise-and-fall-of-master.html

Jim said...

The judiciary has no power to order legislatures to pass a law. They can only rule that a law the legislature has passed is unconstitutional or that it is in contravention of a higher law (federal vs. state, for example).

Jim said...

So still no answer?

Mike M said...

answer to what? I already answered your question and you responded with what judges are assigned to do. There are many cases of judges going above and beyond interpretation of the law, to an imposition of their agendas. The Massachusetts gay marriage ruling is just one example.

Go read the book, "Men in Black" by Mark R Levin. It's all about the judiciary and how they have deviated from the original framing.