Scalia on Foreign Law & Constitutional Interpretation
Check out Scalia to Congress: Butt Out of Court’s Use of Foreign Law by David Savage. Here’s a snippet:
- In recent years, four of Scalia’s colleagues — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy — have given speeches saying the opinions of foreign courts should influence U.S. legal thinking though outside views are not decisive.
Three years ago, when the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Texas law that made private sex between gay adults a crime, the majority noted in passing that the European Court of Human Rights had come to a similar conclusion two decades earlier.
Two years ago, the court struck down state laws that permitted the death penalty for murderers younger than 18. Kennedy noted that the United States stood nearly alone in condemning juvenile killers to death.
Scalia dissented sharply in both cases, faulting the majority for following the view of “like-minded foreigners” and repeating his view that the Constitution “means just what it meant when it was adopted.”