Shiny New Supreme Court
So this is what it feels like to wake up in the morning having a little more freedom than you did yesterday. Michelle Malkin comments on today’s Supreme Court ruling that the international court has no jurisdiction in US law. (link)
I imagine in some part of our nation’s history, the people looked to the Supreme Court as the final arbiter to keep a congress and a president and powerful people in check. The Supreme Court was intended to rule on specific issues, keeping the law, the constitution, and reason intact with their rulings. It was to be the last place the oppressed could turn in their quest for justice.
I grew up with every bit of news coming from the Supreme Court being worse than the last. It came to a head a few years back when the Supreme Court ruled that we have no property rights except the property rights local governments allow us to have in their imminent domain ruling. Although it was devastating, it wasn’t surprising, since these kinds of rulings have been coming again and again, starting way back when the Supreme Court ruled that congress can force farmers not to plant wheat, even if the wheat they would grow was for their own use.
But it looks like the beginning of a new day. It looks like the Supreme Court is a shiny new thing, a source of liberty and not tyranny.
I am filled with a lot of hope that the justices will also rule that the right to bear arms is a personal right, one equal to the right to free speech and the right to assemble.Indeed, that will be quite a day.
If a McCain as president means another Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, or Alito, then by all means, I will vote for the man, even if he believes in the Global Warming religion.
March 25, 2008 at 9:53 am
How is this a victory? Foreign nationals were deprived of their rights to consult consular representatives in the state of Texas in death penalty cases, and the state did not work to correct that. And would this have changed the results? Would consultation of consular officials altered the rulings? Probably not, but where is the harm in asking the government of Texas to follow the law?
We’re sliding into a morass of hypocrisy here. We cannot expect to break the rules of international law and not accept the consequences of those actions.
March 25, 2008 at 12:19 pm
That’s the thing—the international court has no jurisdiction in this matter.
When did Texas concede its right to govern to the international court?
What treaty did we sign and the senate approve that said we would surrender our right to try criminals in a court of law?
The only international law that governs us is the international law we write for ourselves. London, Seoul, Paris and Tokyo have no power over us except that which we give them. The same is true on a local level, on a state level, and on a national level. Government rules only with the consent of the governed. In this case, we never consented.
That’s the victory—that our right to self-rule was recognized, and the attempt to take that right from us was denied.
March 25, 2008 at 1:29 pm
That’s not the point.
The ICJ may be involved, but this is an argument about the Vienna Convention, and the enforcement of the rights of foreign nationals under that Convention. The opinion does make an argument about the proper *implementation* of those obligations under the treaty, and the fact that legislation did not follow up with the requirements of that treaty. (And yes, the Senate actually did ratify the Vienna Convention.)
In fact, this case wasn’t even about the ICJ, but about the powers of the federal executive versus the role of federal legislation.
So I don’t have a problem with discussions of proper procedure, what branch should do what, etc. That’s the kind of decision that the Supreme Court is meant to handle. But it just smacks of a lack of fair play to state simply that the rules of international law should not apply just because it’s international law, imposed on “us” by “foreigners”. This is a case where the legislation should have been there to ensure compliance without the intervention of the President or the ICJ, and people are viewing this as a great victory for sovereignty.
We didn’t fulfill our end of a *ratified* treaty. To just dismiss that as our right to “rule ourselves without interference” is to make the arrogant assumption that we should be the beneficiaries of treaties that we ourselves do not need to follow. If that really is the case, what reason do other countries have to follow suit?
March 25, 2008 at 1:33 pm
(And before you mention it, yes, the U.S. did pull out of that optional part of the treaty, but this happened after the events of this case took place.)