‘Disqualifying’ words from Judge Ketanji Brown JacksonBy Harmeet K. Dhillon
March 24, 2022
After four long days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee, we are left with more questions than answers about what kind of justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would be if confirmed to the Supreme Court — and the answers the Senate received were troubling to the point of being disqualifying.
Judge Jackson repeatedly claimed to not have a judicial philosophy. Instead, she suggested that she uses a “methodology” that she has developed throughout her time on the bench: utilizing “the arguments of the parties, the facts in the case, and the law that applies in every case” as “inputs” that aid her decision-making.
The problem is that this “methodology” wholly lacks substance, and Jackson described more of a functional strategy used by every judge, rather than a philosophical lens through which she views the law. A judicial philosophy is needed to inform how the law is read and how it applies to the facts of any case.
When Jackson was giving curious answers about her non-philosophy, she paid lip service to textualism and originalism, discussing how she may rely on the original public meaning of laws used in deciding cases. Maybe, as Justice Elena Kagan said during her confirmation hearings, “we’re all textualists” now.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/03/24/disqualifying-words-from-judge-ketanji-brown-jackson/