U.S. judicial system

In his dissent from the Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that it is not clear where the court derives the authority – or the audacity – to contradict Congress and the executive branch (BDN, June 30).

Apparently the justice does not understand that our judicial system was specifically created as a third and co-equal branch of our government with powers equal to Congress and the executive. The court has the authority to overrule either one or both branches and has done so many times.

One need only recall Franklin Roosevelt’s “court packing” proposal in the years before World War II. That Supreme Court was conservative and FDR wished a more liberal point of view. The president lost.

The current administration has criticized our judicial system as being too creative.

Now we find John C. Yoo, a principal architect of the administration’s response to the terrorist threat and currently a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, stating in The New York Times (Week in Review, July 2), “What the court is doing is attempting to suppress creative thinking” (emphasis added).

Interesting!

Charles Cunningham

Blue Hill