Cass Sunstein Quotes
A decision reflects judicial restraint if it upholds practices under constitutional attack. A decision reflects judicial activism if it invalidates practices under constitutional attack.
Cass Sunstein, Attorney & Political Scientist, “Has the Supreme Court Gone Too Far?,” Commentary, October 2003
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Referring to the Brown v. Board of Education, the Topeka, KS, Supreme Court school desegregation decision:
The New Deal liberal Democrats had complained that the Supreme Court was making national policy and law and not interpreting law. They tried to pack the Supreme Court by adding more justices who would be more sympathetic to the New Deal. (See {587549}.) At the beginning of the 21st century it was the conservative Republicans who were making the same claim that the Supreme Court was making law and not interpreting it. The pattern seems to be when the court votes for your side, they are interpreting the law. When they vote for the other side, they are activist—making law improperly.
In 2002 the corrupt Indonesian Courts ruled that a very solvent Canadian company Manulife was bankrupt so that others could get control. The international financial and political community wanted the Indonesian government to intervene and reverse the rulings, but historically the courts had no independence and had been tools of the government.
Cass Robert Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics. He is also The New York Times best-selling author of The World According to Star Wars (2016) and Nudge (2008). He was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.
