ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Check out this op/ed from Australia, that came to my attention thanks to the Angry Clam over at Patterico. You've gotta read the whole thing. Here's the end of it:

[T]here have ... been ... routine calls for an Australian bill of rights. If we take that path, we should expect the pandemonium of a US-style political appointment process. It is inevitable when you turn judges into politicians. As long as Australian judges are only asked to opine on relatively technical questions of black letter law, they will remain implementers of policy, not makers of it. They will be technicians, not politicians. And that will mean their appointment is a technical, not a political process. That might make for a rather boring affair, but, to borrow from George Will, in a well-functioning society some things are meant to be dull.

Ironically, phrases like "due process" were intended to have a precise technical meaning in our Bill of Rights. The problem has been judges who couldn't resist the temptation to wield a mightier gavel.