Should we stop talking in terms of "Constitutional" and say "case law" instead?

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  • June 5, 2018 at 10:32 am #87070
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    Another question for our legal eagles.

    Perhaps it’s just my background in literature and language that makes me get all pissed off when people seem to blatantly abuse words and terms . . . and my own sense of logic and common sense . . . But I’ve pretty much had it with claims about the “Constitutionality” of X, Y or Z, when there’s not even the remotest hint of a whiff of a suggestion of the relevant words actually being in the Constitution in said case.

    Shouldn’t people make their case based on something like “case law” instead? How can you claim something is “Constitutional” when it doesn’t appear in that document in any way, shape or form?

    Most recently, the case of Trump’s assertion of his total powers over all criminal proceedings, investigations, etc. etc. in America. There is no such hint of an allusion to such a thing in Article II. It doesn’t include any words at all about criminal investigations, proceedings, even relevant departments, and the DOJ didn’t come into being until 1870.

    I think the five reactionary theocrats on the Supreme Court also abuse the term, when they rule in favor of this or that corporation, polluter, bigot or gun lobby. They don’t have any actual words, terms, phrases, paragraphs IN the Constitution to support their rulings in all too many cases. But they may have some “case law” which can also be contradicted by other “case law.”

    Comments most welcome.

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