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“If you think for a minute, is it not the case that every dictator in the world has a bill of rights, every banana republic, every republic has a bill of rights
by kortex 4y ago
“If you think for a minute, is it not the case that every dictator in the world has a bill of rights, every banana republic, every republic has a bill of rights?”
- Antonin Scalia
A constitution without the ecosystem and institutions to carry it out is meaningless paper. Institutions without a constitution, but with a long history of case law can be just.
Governments are systems but people aren't computers and laws aren't source code.
- haltingproblem 4y agoThis is a good train of thought even though you quoted Scalia who was a strict constructionist. Care to expand on it?
- pfortuny 4y agoA constitution without separation of powers with the possibility of judging the representatives is worthless. The fact that doing so is difficult (the most blatant case being Nixon) does not make it worthless, it only helps granting the executive some stability (because it has usually been elected by the people, so it needs some berth to operate). In that sense, the US constitution is a very good early example. The independence of the judiciary is essential. I am not defending the US constitution per se, though.