RE: [pct-l] In the pursuit of power!

Ron-
>>You missed my point. Courts have routinely gone beyond the letter of the
law
for years. I just believe that the Florida ruling will encourage them to do
this more so. I then predict how this will affect the PCT and this list
users. I am not debating the right or wrong of the ruling, just predicting
its effect.

Do I believe that either party stands for anything other than power? No!<<

Tom,

My argument is that it "is" the purpose of the court to go beyond the letter
of the law. Not to do so would be malfeasance. 

Why? Well for a number of reasons.

1) Laws often conflict. When laws conflict, it is up to the court to sort
out a variety of conflicting laws and regulations. To make sense of the
conflict. Now if you had watched the Supreme Court proceedings, you'd have
realized that the issues were not as clear cut as the proponents would make
it out. Also wording within one statue disagreed with another.
2) Laws are often written vague. Because legislators can't foresee all
possibilities, laws are often written quite vaguely. In order to resolve
this vagueness, courts typically read not only the law when making
decisions, but also go back to read the legislative record. This way they
can get not only the law but also the intent of the legislators.
3) Historical precedence. When laws aren't clear the court goes back to see
what similar decisions were made in the past. In this case, there were
several past rulings that effected the outcome.

Now, I'm not making these observations because I watched either the
Democratic or Republican post decision spin. I spent two hours yesterday
watching the actual court proceedings. 

Ron "Fallingwater" Moak
--------------------------------------------------------
PCT 2000 - http://www.fallingwater.com/pct2000


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