Comments on: Scalia and Breyer Debate Use of Foreign Law Precedents

By: jonathan

jonathan — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 07:09:53 +0000

Scalia is very specific. His statements bely a beleif in separate moral codes, american versus unamerican (USA versus the rest of the world). Scalia's stance is close-minded and elitist.

By: bryan

bryan — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:59:32 +0000

From what I understood of the post, it seems that Breyer was saying that foreign opinions should be consulted as a basis for making a decision, and therefore working their precedents into American law. Scalia seemed to be saying it's okay to look at other people's opinions, but don't cite them as any sort of basis for your judgement.

Given the legal systems in other parts of the world (almost none of whom have a bill of rights to adjudicate), I think Scalia's probably correct.

By: ken

ken — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:30:48 +0000

James, it sounds like Sclalia is argueing for intentional ignorance. Bryer is saying that if they, the Supremes, were to read the decisions foriegn judges made on similear cases it might help inform their opinion. Scalia is saying that because it might inform their opinion they better not do it. His reason: because they are not American.

Didn't the Soviets have a similiar myopic view of everything foriegn?