Judicial Overreach Quotes

A corrupt and dynastic political party is antithetical to the rule of law and to carefully crafted constitutional checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. A tendency towards autocracy and consequent institutional subversion is inevitable with a party thus configured. The result is a prime minister bereft of real power, subservient to the dynastic head and a mute spectator to the loot and plunder of the nation’s resources; a president who is a loyal camp follower and will faithfully rubber stamp the decisions ordained by the dynasty: witness how unhesitatingly President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the Proclamation of Emergency at Mrs. Gandhi’s bidding in 1975 and ponder whether Mrs. Pratibha Patil, (besieged as she was by her co-operative sugar factory in liquidation, her co-operative bank bankrupt, and her family embroiled in the murder case of a popular intra-party rival in Jalgaon at the time of her nomination by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi), would have done otherwise; or for that matter whether President Pranab Mukherjee, whose many acts of subversion of the Constitution during the Emergency have been documented by the Shah Commission, is so radically transformed that he would now protect it; a judiciary accused of judicial overreach when it censures the government or brings its ministers to book while its inconvenient judgments are subjected to review or Presidential Reference; a CAG whose findings against the government’s decisions are vilified as being patently erroneous, in excess of jurisdiction and even motivated, although that august body, the Constituent Assembly had opined that as the guardian of the nation’s finances, the CAG was as important a Constitutional functionary as the justices of the Supreme Court; a CVC appointed despite the taint of corruption and over the protest of the leader of the Opposition, whose appointment was finally quashed by the Supreme Court; and a CBI whose only role on empirical evidence is to falsely implicate political opponents and wrongly exonerate the regime’s members and cronies.

Having seen what the Earl Warren Court did with judicial power, Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork advocated an ethic of judicial restraint and deference to legislatures. Over time, however, conservative judges focused more and more on restraining legislatures through the courts by invalidating some laws as unconstitutional. Originalism was both a “shield” against judicial overreach and a “sword” to be used against acts of Congress.

During the HIV epidemic, newspapers had questioned public health pronouncements and warned against government overreach. As early as June 1983, the New York Times had published an opinion piece titled “AIDS and Civil Liberties,” citing the “danger that the judicial and political systems will fall prey to the irrational demands of a frightened public and impose groundless and onerous regulations that result in the widespread loss of freedom.”39

Consider that for a second. Democrats controlled the executive branch for eight years under Obama and produced nothing but problems, from health-care chaos and unaffordability, to economic stagnation, to foreign policy aimlessness. Under President Trump, prior to the coronavirus panic, the nation was reinvigorated, with an unprecedented economic boom, strong foreign policy leadership, deregulation, exceptional judicial appointments, and energy independence. What, exactly, would the left have us turn around? Do they want a rebirth of malaise, executive overreach, and an America-last foreign policy? Do they want to reimpose the Obamacare mandate? In fact, yes, you can bank on it.