Letter: Judges are correct to base decisions on Constitution

Wednesday, May 4, 2005 | 9:19 a.m.

Imagine, if you will, that you live in a society of 1,000 people. The premise of this society is individual rights. In fact this premise is so valued that the basic law, the foundation upon which all other laws are written, guarantees these rights. Wouldn't you expect any society valuing individual rights so highly to have some mechanism in place to protect them?

Imagination is not needed. Such a society does exist today. It's called the United States of America. The basic law is the Constitution. While the Constitution values collective rights, it puts a higher premium on individual rights. That means individual rights cannot be denied simply because the will of the people so desires. The mechanism for protecting these individual rights is the judiciary.

Today that mechanism is under attack. I believe the reason for this is that we have become fixated on the term "democracy." We have become so enamored with democracy that we ignore our history.

The Founding Fathers chose to give us a constitutional republic, not a democracy. As a result, the Constitution rules supreme. Since we're a republic and not a democracy, the will of the people takes a back seat to the Constitution. An excellent example is the 2000 presidential election. The constitutionality of the Electoral College trumped the will of the people and George W. Bush became president.

Judges take an oath to protect the Constitution. Yet they are being taken to task for ignoring the will of the people. Do we really want judges basing decisions, not on the Constitution, but on the result of recent polls? That's exactly what we're asking them to do when we criticize them for defying the will of the people.

TERRY E PEELE