Diane Watson Quotes

The primary job of the Supreme Court justice is not to uphold the will of the majority of the moment. The primary job of the Supreme Court is not to reflect the popular opinions of the day.... The Constitution is a decidedly anti-majoritarian document in wonderful and important ways that intentionally protect our rights and our liberties. And the role of the Supreme Court—in protecting those rights and liberties—is sometimes precisely to frustrate the will of a majority.

Our constitution got built around the idea of minority protection.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

Judges are the people who have to protect the rights of individuals, have to protect the rights of minorities, have to protect the rights in the Constitution, have to protect the requirement that the executive and the legislature not simply exercise raw power but adhere to standards of reasonableness and constitutionality.

I would like to see more judicial activism because I want to see more laws struck down.

The Supreme Court is the living voice of the Constitution—that is, of the will of the people expressed in the fundamental law they have enacted. It is ... the conscience of the people.... It is the guarantee of the minority who, when threatened by the impatient vehemence of the majority, can appeal to this permanent law, finding the interpreter and enforcer thereof in a Court set high above the assaults of faction.

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials …

Federal courts sit to ensure that individuals are not imprisoned in violation of the Constitution—not to correct errors of fact.

Ultimately, the reason we have a Constitution, the reason we have separation of powers, the reason we have the Fourteenth Amendment is to provide the courts with the opportunity to override the will of the people when the will of the people discriminates against a segment of our society.

We would be false to our trust if we allowed the time it takes to give effect to constitutional rights to be used as the very reason for taking away those rights.

The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.

The Founding Fathers worried that 'some common impulse of passion' might lead many to subvert the rights of the few. It's a rational fear, one that is played out endlessly.

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.

The prohibitions of the Constitution were put in place precisely to prevent majority opinion from ruling certain areas of life.

The notion that a person's constitutional rights may be subject to a majority vote is itself anathema.

The Supreme Court has acted as the final barricade against the assaults of democratic majorities.

The appelate jurisdiction of the Supreme Federal Court, includes an unwarrantable stretch of power over the liberty, life, and property of the subject, through the wide Continent of America.

The experience of the past one hundred and fifty years has revealed the danger that, through judicial interpretation, the constitutional device for the protection of minorities from oppressive majority action, may be made the means by which the majority is subject to the tyranny of the minority.

The rights given in the Constitution are given to all people—the most popular and the least popular.

Our Founding Fathers created the United States Senate for the purpose of protecting the rights of the minority.

… courts today are less inclined to allow majoritarian coercion of unpopular or disliked minority groups, especially when blatant racism . . . religious prejudice, or some other constitutionally suspect motivation, can be discovered behind such legislation

The rights to life, liberty and property were not meant to be subject to the vagaries of majority rule.

In the legislative arena, especially when the country is closely divided, compromises tend to be the rule the day. But when judges rule this or that policy unconstitutional, there's little room for compromise: One side must win, the other must lose.