To the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, Harvard Law School,
Dear Randall Kennedy,
I enjoyed your article in the London Review of Books of 21st Jan 2021, and was stimulated by it. You declared yourself to be a ‘Cynical Realist’, believing that the judges of the US Supreme Court are inevitably nothing more than politicians in robes, and are not, in fact, applying 'law' to their judgements. But I think I am one of the other sort, whatever that is — perhaps a ‘cloud cuckoo idealist’.
That is to say, I am inclined to think that, as to the justice of a disputed point, there is indeed a right and a wrong answer, definable in terms of a sufficient number of sufficiently well-trained deep-thinkers.
I would suggest that the Supreme Court be required to come to a unanimous decision. (Or at least a 2/3 majority.) If the justices could not discuss their way to a unanimous decision, I would have them sit there hour after hour, like cardinals at a papal election, till hunger drove one side to give way?
I do not think that a decision reached in that way would be worse than the predictable and apparently knee-jerk voting of the present Supreme Court? It would reinforce the claim that there exists such as thing as 'Justice'.
Yours sincerely,
Yours sincerely,
Ian West
(See also: https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2021/03/one-justice-or-many.html & http://occidentis.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-role-of-citizen.html.)
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