Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes
We live in a democracy which can be destroyed if judges function as Platonic guardians.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Confirmation hearings, July 21, 1993
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Actually Adams had used the phrase in 1774 writing in the Massachusetts Gazette under the pseudonym Novanglus. See James Harrington related quotes for an earlier similar expression for which Adams is sometimes credited.
He served on a Supreme Court that was as close to political as any had ever been. Hence his great concern.
In 2002 the corrupt Indonesian Courts ruled that a very solvent Canadian company Manulife was bankrupt so that others could get control. The international financial and political community wanted the Indonesian government to intervene and reverse the rulings, but historically the courts had no independence and had been tools of the government.
In many nations, there is little judicial independence from the government. Judicial decisions that thwart government sometimes produce retaliation ranging from reducing the pay or staff of judges, threatened investigations and impeachment even arrest and execution---sometimes by government ‘death squads’. Even in the United States, the beginning of the 21st century, was fraught with so many examples of judicial intimidation threats, that two Supreme Court justices began speaking throughout the country to educate the public to this problem. In general, the more democratic and free a nation is, the more frequently the courts will disallow activities of the executive and even the legislature.
She was the first female Chief Justice in California.
The New Deal liberal Democrats had complained that the Supreme Court was making national policy and law and not interpreting law. They tried to pack the Supreme Court by adding more justices who would be more sympathetic to the New Deal. (See {587549}.) At the beginning of the 21st century it was the conservative Republicans who were making the same claim that the Supreme Court was making law and not interpreting it. The pattern seems to be when the court votes for your side, they are interpreting the law. When they vote for the other side, they are activist—making law improperly.
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in September 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton, replacing retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. She eventually became part of the liberal wing of the Court as the Court shifted to the right over time. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor. During her tenure, Ginsburg wrote notable majority opinions, including United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005).
