Let's focus on what things we should all agree on when it comes to our judicial system:
- That everyone should be treated fairly.
- That the law should be objective and fair.
- That there should be consistency in the process.
Now, admittedly not everyone probably agrees with these principles, but I am more than convinced that they should. At least they should if they were truly honest about wanting a fair and impartial judicial system. Problem is that I don't believe that everyone actually wants a fair and impartial judicial system. I thinks some people see the judicial system as a means to an end that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with fairness.
But let's assume that I am wrong about my suspicions, and that everyone really would like to see a fair judiciary process.
_______
Let's start with a quick analogy regarding the arbitration of rules. Everyone inherently knows that when it comes to things like reffing football, that there are going to be calls that are clearly subjective. The referees are many times forced to make a judgement call. But those judgement calls are supposed to be made based on the rules set in place at the beginning of the season.
Now at the end of every football season the "rules committee" meets and discusses changes to or possibly even new rules. Pass interference has been one that the rules committee has gone back and forth on. In many ways, the rules on pass interference has been like the "living document" that many on the left would like the constitution to be. One year, it's okay to face mask, the next year not so much. One year you are allowed to initiate contact in certain situations, the next year it's a penalty. The only constant to pass interference seems to be change.
But... those rules are set at the beginning of the season, everyone is given the opportunity to learn about the changes, and the calls for that season are designed to use whatever new set of rules are currently in place. What doesn't happen, and would never happen, is that sometime during the third quarter of a game one of the referees decides on his own that the meaning of pass interference should be changed at the core, and that he will now decide to make his judgement based on the new meaning he just came up with.
_______
Now we can all see why it would be unfair for a referee to change the rules in the middle of a football game. Quite obviously we inherently understand that the players need to know the rules they are playing under when the game starts, and they should be able to rest assured that those rules are not subject to the whims of another person's singular opinion on how those rules should be evolving. This is a fundamental basic common ideal of fairness that we all should have learned when we were in grade school. (You don't get to change the rules in the middle of a game).
Can anyone tell me why life should have any less protection from arbitrary rule changes than a football game does?
You see, when a Justice takes it upon himself to decide that there is something in the constitution that requires an interpretation or decides that a legal statute means something different than what is actually written into the statute, he or she is quite literally changing the laws of society on the fly. Unlike a rules committee, which discusses rule changes, and then lets everyone know what the new rules will be... this Justice provides no such advance warning that the rules and laws of society have changed.
Moreover, the Justice is literally changing the laws "after" the events that are in question have taken place. There would be no way for the Parties involved to have known that the Justice in question was going to reinterpret the meaning of the law, that in nearly all cases had historically been already set. They were living and behaving under the old laws, and the Justice is expecting that they should have behaved as he or she would like to see the law interpreted.
_______
Now if we all agree (and again we all should agree) that the fair way to go about any arbitration of rules or laws is to let people know when a rule or law has been changed prior to changing them, so that the people involved understand what rules they are living by: then it's clear that it should no more be up to a "justice" to change the interpretation of rules or laws, than it would be for a football referee to do so. In fact, unless anyone is willing to suggest that "life in general" is less important than a football game, then we should be "more" inclined to demand that Judges and Justices follow the rules as written (not as they would otherwise interpret them).
So how do you solve this? You require your Justices to rule on the purest simplest most easily agreed upon factual reading of the constitution, the precedents, and statutory laws. If the statute says something specific. That's your statute.
This resolves two problems. First and foremost, the Judge doesn't get to declare that a statute meant something different than it states, because that is simply not fair to the people following it. Secondly, the best way to guarantee consistency of judicial reasoning is to take the constitution, precedent, and laws at their simplest and most obvious meaning. Wouldn't it be nice to believe that a Federal Judge on the First Circuit nominated by George W Bush would generally rule the same way as a Federal Judge on the Ninth Circuit nominated by Barack Obama?
At the end of the day, if the Country is not happy with how a law or statute is actually written, then they get the rules committee (Congress) to change it. If they are not happy with how something is written into the constitution, then they can amend it. Then, everyone understands the law of the land is different, and they can live and behave accordingly to the changes.
Tell me why I am wrong?