Antonin Scalia Quotes
Many think it is not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences laws or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principals, to accommodate it.
Antonin Scalia, Justice, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The major phrase was first used in a dissent by Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson in 1949 {633526} and later by Chief Justice Earl Warren {601702}
This was written during the George W. Bush Administration where the reaction to 9-11 was to curtail some civil rights and constitutional protections in favor of more national security. Bush was not the only President who eroded civil rights in a fear for National Security. FDR interned the Japanese Americans. Woodrow Wilson jailed pacifists who protested against the draft. John Adams passed the infamous Alien & Sedition Acts.
The incident to which he referred was Islamic extremist terrorists attacking with assault weapons a group of unarmed tourists killing over 30. Tunisia, although it has a large majority Muslim population, became a secular republic after its Arab Spring revolution. Tunisia's economy is dependent on tourism, which is diminished by the fear of more terrorist attacks.
This concept of balance of power and the equal role of the judiciary is actually quite rare. Even in Parliamentary democracies the parliament can override any court interpretation. In England, the upper legislative house, the House of Lords, actually serves as the nation’s highest or supreme court. And these “Law Lords” can override all regular judicial bodies.
There are some who believe that in a time of national emergency the government has the right to suspend the bill of rights or any other constitutional provision. This view is typically held by most foreign governments and they do this all the time. However in America, there is a general consensus that emergency does not vitiate the constitution. However even President Abraham Lincoln tried to suspend aspects of the Bill of Rights during a national crisis.
Catherine II—the Great—appointed a commission to suggest model laws for Russia based on some of the principles of the European Enlightenment. The laws were never officially adopted but they are interesting in that they were the product of “liberal” thinking at the time. This particular definition of “liberty” is similar to that ruse in many country’s modern constitutions which will “guarantee” a right like freedom of speech so long as it does not violate any laws.
Even in 1828 there were issues of which politicians would protect Constitutional rights and which might not.
Actually it was Thomas Jefferson who had drafted most of the language. This attack was aimed at President John Adams, the big supporter of the unpopular Alien and Sedition laws, and the man Jefferson was intent on unseating at the end of his first term. He did and destroyed the Federalist Party in the process.
Antonin Gregory Scalia was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Court's conservative wing. For catalyzing an originalist and textualist movement in American law, he has been described as one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important justices in the Supreme Court's history. Scalia was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018 by President Donald Trump, and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor.
