Top 100 Judicial Quotes

One of the litmus tests for judicial conservatism is the idea of judicial restraint – that courts should give substantial deference to the decisions of the political process. When Congress and the president enact a law, conservatives generally say, judges should avoid ‘legislating from the bench.’

Obama and Biden want a bench crammed full of liberal judicial activists, and it’s up to the American people to tell them ‘no.’

As Alexander Hamilton said in ‘The Federalist Papers,’ law is about the exercise of judgment and not will. Judicial activism is best understood as substituting judicial opinion for the command of law. The law is not an infinitely malleable tool.

When it comes to revamping our bail laws, we can’t rely on judicial discretion alone.

Empirical evidence collected and analyzed by political scientists demonstrates that judicial pensions are the most important factor in a Justice’s decision to retire, far more important than the party of the President or which political party has control of the Senate.

I’m not in charge of judgments in Iran. The judicial system in Iran is an independent body of its own, and it follows the laws, and it must operate according to the law.

The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.

The overreach of the judiciary can be attributed to, one, the inability of the executive to deliver; and two, the tendency to issue judicial pronouncements for national good. The second element is dangerous because that’s the function of the government.

What’s brilliant about the United States system of government is separation of power. Not only the executive, legislative, judicial branches, but also the independence of the military from civilians, an independent media and press, an independent central bank.

Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy – judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes – because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences.

I want to differentiate between stability and security: Stability comes from the hearts of people and acceptance of the judicial system. Security comes from the barrel of a gun and the threat of the use of force.

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

It is true that there have been excesses of judicial activism.

Historically, the judicial branch has often been the sole protector of the rights of minority groups against the will of the popular majority.

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens.

I had a very long discussion with Justice Gorsuch in my office, and he pointed out to me that he is a co-author of a whole book on precedent. So, someone who devotes that much time to writing a book on precedent, I think, understands how important a principle that is in our judicial system.

The judicial system of Rwanda is not subordinate to France or France’s interests.

The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.’ Wouldn’t they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.

A decision by the Supreme Court to subject Guantanamo to judicial review would eliminate these advantages.

The Founding Fathers built our judicial system to withstand the special interest pressures that beset the political branches of government.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

Governments can and do expropriate investors or discriminate against them. Domestic judicial and administrative systems provide investors with one option for protecting themselves.

Some Republicans support gay rights, but prefer progress through legislative action or majority rule at the ballot box, rather than judicial action.

Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means – and in any context, whether it’s judicial or otherwise – I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.

An important and fundamental premise of the American judicial system is the presumption of innocence, that is until proven guilty.

It is the union of independence and dependence of these branches – legislative, executive and judicial – and of the governmental functions possessed by each of them, that constitutes the marvellous genius of this unrivalled document.

Conservative voters increasingly understand that the one legacy a president can leave is his judicial appointments.

Now that judges embrace forcibly starving someone to death, Congress should use its appropriation power to starve the judicial budget.

It is hard to see Judge Roberts as a judicial activist who would place ideological purity or a particular agenda above or ahead the need for thoughtful legal reasoning.

Our Parliamentary system has simply failed to meet the challenge of judicial activism.

If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President’s judicial nominees.

The activists will not stop in trying to impose their extreme views on the rest of us, and they have now plotted out a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without the voice of the people being heard.

I’ve learned that the Court will continue to change the meaning of the Constitution. Although all of the Justices have expressed the importance of judicial restraint, the Court inevitably makes new law every time it interprets the Constitution.

Back in 2005, Judicial Watch uncovered a Border Patrol survey conducted by the Bush administration in 2004 to determine what impact amnesty would have on illegal immigration. Want to take a guess at the outcome? Even the rumor of Mr. Bush’s amnesty program led to a sharp spike in illegal immigration.

Conservative Justices have a history of not standing by their professed commitment to judicial restraint.

My judicial philosophy is straightforward.

The Senate should consider a rule ensuring that every judicial nominee receives a vote by the Senate within 180 days of being nominated by the president.

Since the day the Obama administration first launched its duplicitous Benghazi cover story, Judicial Watch has been pressing for the full truth.

If people around the world knew how well people at Guantanamo Bay are treating prisoners, they would not fall prey to the accusations that some in our Chamber are making. They are all receiving judicial review.

The Supreme Court’s most conservative Justices have presented themselves as great respecters of precedent and opponents of ‘judicial activism’ – of judges using the Constitution to strike down laws passed by the elected branches of government. If they are true to those principles, they should uphold rent control.

In ‘Bush v. Gore,’ five justices had a partisan outcome in mind and then made up the judicial principle to justify it, while claiming that the decision would not be precedent for any future cases.

Elected president of the Republic, I would immediately, and with no hesitation, carry out the battle plan against Islamist terrorism and against judicial laxity.

The first session of the Congress of the United States under the Constitution was devoted principally to the problems of immediate revenues and administrative and judicial organization.

The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. Most of the expansion has taken place in secret, making Congressional or judicial supervision particularly difficult.

Everything from who sits on your local board of education to the prosecutors and judicial appointments in your area and much more are all impacted by who holds political office.

Of course, conservatives always claim to be against judicial activism.

Now judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can, of course, fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional.

The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.

The hardest problems of all in law enforcement are those involving a conflict of law and local customs. History has recorded many occasions when the moral sense of a nation produced judicial decisions, such as the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which required difficult local adjustments.