Reuven Rivlin Quotes

Anyone who has followed my work knows that I'm an advocate of reducing the power of the High Court of Justice, according to the principle of separation of powers.

It is not the role of Congress to decide legal cases between private parties. That is why we have courts.

The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.

The fact that the judiciary makes foolish rulings doesn’t mean the government should intervene.

There's no such thing as judicial supremacy.

As a district judge, I view my role quite differently than the role of legislators.

The position the Government finds itself in is not one of constructing a law, but of carrying out a decision given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The president typically never does comment on anything involving the Supreme Court cases, Supreme Court ruling, or Supreme Court finding, typically.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.

The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along - not the Congress nor the courts.

The judicial power of every well-constituted government must be coextensive with the legislative, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws.

Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each successive wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law; but the maker of the law may commit something to the discretion of the other departments, and the precise boundary of this power is a subject of delicate and difficult inquiry.

My job is to write opinions, decide cases and write opinions, not to respond to idiocies.

I don’t see why a Supreme Court justice has to have previous experience as a judge.

One single object... will merit the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation

The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging.