Legal Opinions Quotes
Forced marriage upon a girl or woman was very common at the time. In this case, the woman had been repeatedly raped (the sin) and then forced to say the words of the marriage ceremony in front of witnesses. The woman wanted the marriage dissolved, and the man wanted his “wife.” At the time, there was no such thing as divorce. De Ponte ruled that there was no marriage. He was the first medieval jurist to write opinions on cases, thus preserving a record for openness and an instrument to teach others and produce uniformity of decisions and judgments—the basis of most legal systems today. As a result this written case, forced marriage became less frequent in Italy, though it is very prevalent in underdeveloped countries in general and Islamic nations in particular. Even in the United States there are a few cases of forced marriage each year, particularly in religious cults and communities.
Unfortunately, much modern Islamic philosophy and religion sees new knowledge and innovation of ideas as heresy per se. However, this was not at all true at the beginning of Islam. This narrow-mindedness and intolerance began to develop in 1100, hundreds of years after Mohammad. Contrast Abu Hanifa with an Islamic modern fundamentalist who claims there can be no valid new knowledge: {620307}. This jurist is more typical of most Muslim judges and legal experts, than the fundamentalists who tend to promote their believes more vigorously and get much more media coverage—including in this collection of quotations—simply because the are so violent and such a danger.
Goldsmith headed the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel—the office that makes legal opinions to guide the Federal Government’s conduct. Goldstein had been asked to render an opinion as to whether terrorists captured in the Iraq War were protected by the Geneva Conventions. The Justice Department staff had concluded that all Iraq civilians were covered including terrorists and insurgents. He was called to meeting at the White House with the President’s and Vice President’s counsels. When Goldsmith revealed the Justice Department conclusion, Addington grew agitated and made this response. The quotation provides insight into the operations of the George W. Bush White House and its relationship with the rest of the government.
This was the most eloquent acknowledgement of the import and difficult job of the Federal Disctrict Judges--the backbone of the Federal Judiciary who are oftetn over looked in favor of the appellate judges and Supreme Court judges who deal with cases as a group and always have the privelege of reviewing and second guessing the work of the district judges who first had to decide the issue on way or the other.
He was reacting to the fact that in the George W. Bush administration, they found a few lawyers in the Justice Department that they put into key positions and they wrote legal opinions stating that many commonly used forms of torture were not torture and therefore were legal. Of course the legal opinion was secret so other lawyers could not fault it, and the CIA actually used that as justification for the torture of some of the enemy combatants in the War on Terror.
Judges are restrained by the law and precedence (stare decisis), as well as having to uphold what he/she thinks are undesirable laws or find against laws he thinks are good. He must decide on the law and the facts of the particular case. And if he is an appellate or a Supreme Court judge he must make compromises to accommodate other justices hearing the case along with him/her.
Relying on precedent in judicial decisions has the potential problem of perpetuating errors of the past. However, not to do so, creates doubt and uncertainty vitiating one of the major functions of the higher courts---to set the rules for all. In this particular case, the other justices did not agree that there had been a previous error and so Rehnquist’s view was a minority dissent, almost all judges would agree with this principle.
Amicus Curia is Latin for Friend of the Court. In the American legal system, in any appeal case any organization or individual may file a brief to the court even though they are not on either side. Some like Brest do not like these briefs because they are not for either side but just want to benefit the country and the society. Others think that these are the best brief’s because they consider the big picture and not the specific parties to the case.
