Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently spoke at a conference sponsored by the Mississippi College School of Law. There, he said activists who back the use of international law in the U.S. legal system are selective when they want to use it.
Scalia oppose the use of international law and decisions by foreign courts to interpret the Constitution.
“If there was any thought absolutely foreign to the founders of our country, surely it was the notion that we Americans should be governed the way Europeans are,” he said, according to the Jackson Free Press newspaper.
“I dare say that few of us here would want our life or liberty subject to the disposition of French or Italian criminal justice—not because those systems are unjust, but because we think ours is better,” the pro-life jurist added.
But Scalia says those who advocate using foreign law do so selectively and ignore how many foreign laws oppose abortion and foreign courts have issued decisions allowing pro-life laws and abortion restrictions.
“I will become a believer in the ingenuousness, though never the propriety, of the Court’s newfound respect for the wisdom of foreign minds when it applies that wisdom in the abortion cases,” Scalia said, according to the Free Press.
The issue of international law and its usage in American courts was one that came up during the Senate consideration of recent Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
Read more
January 8, 2010
Categories: Books & Publications, Events, Human Rights, Inspirational, Politics . Tags: abortion, foreign courts, Justice Scalia, Supreme Court, U.S. law . Author: Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment