Thread: Our Supreme Court, the rule of law and judicial tyranny

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Our courts are required by our federal Constitution to strike down laws which violate that Constitution. But there is a distinct difference in striking down a law which is not in harmony with the text of our Constitution and/or its legislative intent as expressed during its framing and ratification debates, and, our courts striking down legislation because the court feels the law in question is unfair, unreasonable, or unjust ___ each of which is a subjective opinion.

For example, in Lochner v. New York (1905) the question presented to the Supreme Court was:

Does a state law prohibiting a business owner to allow an employee to work more than 60 hours a week or 10 hours a day violate “liberty”, alleged to be protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

The Court struck the State law down asserting the statute interfered with the freedom to contract which in turn supposedly violated the Fourteenth Amendment's right to liberty afforded to employer and employee. The majority concluded the law had no rational basis and violated the due process wording of the Fourteenth Amendment.

But nowhere in the wording of Fourteenth Amendment is a state prohibited to enact legislation thought to promote the general welfare of its citizens. The restriction being, under the Fourteenth Amendment is, whatever laws a State enacts, those laws are to be enforced equally upon its citizens.

Yes! The New York law in question does, in my mind, violate an inalienable right to contract. But the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended, nor does it by its language, allow the federal government to second-guess the wisdom of a State’s Legislature enacting a law thought to promote the general welfare of its citizens. For the Court to meddle as it did in this case is to violate the Tenth Amendment and powers reserved by the States and people therein, and circumvent the very purpose of Federalism, our Constitution’s “big tent” plan.

Was the bake shop owner denied procedural rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause? I found absolutely nothing in the case to remotely suggest procedural rights were denied. What I did find is, the majority on the Court ignored the limitations of the Fourteenth Amendment and projected its personal views of a State law being ”… fair, reasonable, and [an] appropriate exercise of the police power of the state …” as being the rule of law, while it ignored the narrow limitations of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Do we really want our Supreme Court to morph itself into an omnipotent, unreviewable, legislative body, where judicial decisions are no longer restricted and bound by a written Constitution? If so, then we must abide by Article V, our Constitution’s amendment process, and grant this totalitarian power to the Supreme Court.

JWK

As to our Constitution being a "living document", that life is found only in Article V, a protection demanding the people's participation and consent when change is thought to be necessary.