MIbLAWg: Michigan Supreme Court Commentary

The Michigan Supreme Court is Frightening to Many

Here is an excerpt from the Traverse City Record Eagle which warns about he dangers of Judicial Activism by the Engler Four:

The four justices in question, however - Chief Justice Maura Corrigan, Justice Cliff Taylor, Justice Stephen Markman and Justice Robert Young Jr. - are known to take a narrow view of citizen standing to sue.
That seems to be an ideological devolution from the bedrock premise that the power of government derives from the consent of the governed.
Lawmakers can make laws because voters give them the right to do so. Judges can throw people in jail because citizens say they can. Without citizen consent, the government doesn't exist.
If anything, the justices should be demanding to know why citizen standing should be limited, not why it should be granted.
It's a form of judicial activism reminiscent of the liberal Earl Warren U.S. Supreme Court, but this time it is aimed at limiting the rights of individual citizens, not enhancing them.
      And it's frightening.

What is more frightening is the shallow rationalization which these Justices advance in support of their handiwork.  Do they really believe that their agenda is anything but political?

Hypocrisy On The High Court

Here is what one attorney has posted about Michigan Supreme Court Justice's Markman's view of his judicial role:

In a speech delivered April 29, 2003 at Hillsdale College, Justice Stephen Markman of the Michigan Supreme Court discussed a number of misconceptions about the Constitution of the United States. One of those misconceptions was that the role of a judge in interpreting a constitution is to do justice. As Justice Markman points out, the role of a judge is to do justice under law. Justice Markman states: “The responsible judge must subordinate his personal sense of justice to the public justice of our Constitution and its representative and legal institutions.” He quotes Justice Felix Frankfurter to the effect that: “The highest example of judicial duty is to subordinate one’s personal will and one’s private views to the law.”  more.

Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y?  Wikipedia offer this definition:

Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have morals or virtues that one does not truly possess or practise. The word derives from the late Latin hypocrisis and Greek hupokrisis both meaning play-acting or pretence. The word is arguably derived from hypo- meaning small, + krinein meaning to decide/to dispute. A classic example of a hypocritical act is to denounce another for carrying out some action whilst carrying out the same action oneself.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Markman Invites Debate

Judicial Activism Debate:  Here is what Justice Markman has to say about the controversy concerning assertions of the court's judicial activism, assertions which have swirled around the Michigan Supreme Court since Engler stacked the bench with judges who are more interested in making law than following it. 

"What is reflected in these cases is a continuing jurisprudential debate concerning the role of the judicial branch and the meaning of the “judicial power,” concerning the relationship between the courts and other branches of government, concerning how the language of the law is to be interpreted and given meaning, concerning the impact of precedent, and concerning how the law can best be maintained as a stable and predictable body. Obviously, these are matters about which a consensus cannot always be found on this Court. Yet there is a consensus that these are matters worthy of reflection and analysis and debate, and that is what you have. And it is a debate, in my judgment, that has been carried out in a robust, but also a civil, fashion." more ...

Do we need any more of an invitation to take this debate from the judicial halls to the street, right to the citizens of Michigan?