Posted by
Aaron Silletto on Sunday, March 25, 2007 10:11:23 PM
Judge William Pryor sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. This piece published on the UVA law school’s weblog quotes some of his thoughts on judicial independence from a speech Pryor recently gave at the law school. Check out the entire post. As a teaser, here are some of the key graphs:
“I submit that the independence of the federal judiciary today is as secure as ever. The current criticisms of the judiciary are relatively mild and on balance a benefit to the judiciary,” Pryor said. Although there have been times in American history where judicial independence has been threatened, he added, now is not one of them.
Judicial independence, Pryor described, can be viewed in two parts; decisional independence and institutional independence. The ability of judges to decide cases impartially based on the facts and law represents the decisional component, while institutional independence, the ability of the judiciary to protect its institutional integrity, characterizes the other part. “As scholars have described this arrangement, we have both independent judges and a dependent judiciary,” he said.
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Pryor concluded his talk with this thought: “We must depend on the persuasiveness of our written opinions to command the respect of our fellow citizens. In that way we have the foremost responsibility of safeguarding our independence.”
(h/t ConfirmThem)