Justice Ginsburg Worries About Supreme Court's Politicization

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed concern over the increasing influence of politics on the Supreme Court in a recent interview with USA Today.


"What I care most about I think most of my colleagues do, too," the liberal leaning justice explained, "is that we want this institution to maintain the position that it has had in this system, where it is not considered a political branch of government."


While Ginsburg wouldn't say if her worries about the court's politicization pertained to the actions of any of her colleagues specifically, she did point to the growing divisiveness of the judicial nomination process as evidence that political leanings were working their way into the system.


From USA Today:
"It will take a real statesman to blow the whistle" to stop the pattern, she said. Ginsburg, who was nominated by President Clinton in 1993, was approved on a 96-3 vote. She said she doubted she would enjoy the same bipartisan support today.


Ginsburg went on to describe a particular case in which the court ruled -- 5-4, along ideological lines -- to overthrow a $14 million judgment granted to a former death row inmate convicted of murder after New Orleans prosecutors withheld evidence that might have proven his innocence.


USA Today relays her comments:
"It was an instance of extreme injustice. I thought that the court was not just wrong but egregiously so," she said. She said she decided not simply to let the written statement speak for itself, as is the usual practice, to bring attention to a criminal justice system that "had misfired."


"I was doing it to influence my colleagues and (lower court) judges who could stop this kind of thing," she said of prosecutors' concealing exculpatory evidence.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/01/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court_n_888861.html

Now you’re worried?  Now?  It hasn’t occurred to you before that perhaps this might be a problem with the Supreme Court?  The High Court it seems; is not-so-much about justice as it is about deciding who is right.  The more political it becomes the less it checks and balances the other two branches.  Justice is not about being right or wrong.  When two attorneys from opposing sides of the question argue, believe me; they both believe they are right. It is the duty of the court to decide; “what” is right; not “who” is right; according to the law.  When politics is at play the decisions become too easy and more importantly these decisions will be unjust.  The courts should not decide who is wrong and who is right.  The courts are called upon to decide whether or not the law was broken or it wasn’t.  We are a land of laws, but more and more we are a land of politicians.  What happened to our compass, and how did we get so far off course?