The Law of Interpreting the Constitution Essay Example

Introduction

It is the constitutional role of the judge with respect to statues is to apply its provisions to the case at hand where necessary to interpret them to disclose their meaning. Simple circumstances as the court state it is that the "judges complete the promulgated law by parliament by applying it". Judicial interpretation is way used by the judiciary to interpret the law specifically the constitution, its documents and legislation. In this case, the approach that the concerned interpret the laws and make rulings tends to have a political aspect. The paper will discuss whether judges should interpret the constitution in the same way the founders intended or they should interpret it in the light of the changing circumstances. The discussion will also look into whether judges should make their rulings basing their argument on the wording of the law or they should do that for the benefit of the society.

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The American constitution

The legislative intent concept recognizes that the parliament makes law by the enactment of the statute such that the judge should apply the law. Given the limits of language and imagination, the judges have the interpretive task to bridge the gap between statutory provision enacted by the legislature as well as its operations and applications in circumstances through the concept of legislative intent. The framers of the American constitution were also the visionaries whose work was o design a constitution that endured. In the constitution, their aim was to seek to address the specific challenges that face the nation in the lifetimes and also establish the foundational principles that were to sustain as well as guide the new nation to a future that was uncertain.

While many will criticize the aspect of originalism which is the aspect of no more or less than what the people who wrote the constitution meant sating that it allows "the dead hand of the past" to influence the current situations, striking down the judicial decisions, for this reason, would be analogous to reversing laws once the people who enacted them die. The articles, including Article five, and Bill of Rights contained in the United States Constitution must be interpreted in exactly the same manner as the framers.

Interpretation of law and the constitution

From the perspective of the judges, the interpretive role they play should act in conformity with the common law construction rules. The judge also proceeds on the basis of the assumptions that the rules entail. Judges interpret the laws in different ways according to laws of a specific state. It is the parliament that makes the law but it is the role of judges to interpret the words because they have a measure of discretion and creative power for interpreting legislation (Eskridge, William 2016). It is a form of communication and words used may have a different meaning which the judges need to make clear and it is dependent on the context.

Judges need to interpret the constitution in the same way that the founders did taking into consideration the need for originalism and textualism. Basing the argument on the core-founders reasoning of the law creates a way to reference these laws rather than in the light of the changing circumstances since they will have nowhere to reference to for laws they made previously. It also helps in ensuring that they stick to one lane of getting cases to a conclusion and determining the stake of the offenders.

Legislation needs writing so that its applications can be effective and reliable in different circumstances. Thus, there are many cases where there is a lack of clarity or precision. The use of language which varies according to states can create obscure, ambiguous and meaningless legislation that fails to achieve the targeted end result because of bad drafting. In such circumstances, the judges need to provide legislation that has effective meaning (Dworkin, 2017).

Judges should be limited to the founder's laws and their interpretation because it is typical to the civil law systems where the legislation is depicted to set out the general principles and the judges fill in the finer details.

The judge needs to consider what the legislation says rather than getting to consider what it means making it the reason why they need to use the literal rule. These judges need to give the words in the constitution their literal meaning according to the framers regardless of whether the effect of making such a product will consider an otherwise unjust outcome or one that is undesirable.

Case example

Judges should consider the intentions of the framers in making the constitution and what they meant by the law. An example of the law interpretation where the judges considered the founders of the constitution was in the law about Income tax act of 1952 where the case was between the Inland Revenue Commissioners v Hinchey. The statement for the case was that in the event where the taxpayer did not complete the tax returns, they would be subject to a fixed penalty of $20 and triple the tax charged under the act (Kay, 2016). The judges in the court had to decide whether that additional element of the penalty issued was to have its basis on the total amount that the individual would pay or merely the portion that was unpaid of the total amount.

The judges interpreted the founder's act in a literal rule holding that any taxpayer that defaulted the act would pay triple the original tax bill. The house of the lords took the literal meaning of the law and not the circumstances to understand the meaning. Such an approach is effective and reliable because it has the virtue of simplicity.

Judicial restraint theory

Judges need to use judicial restraint which is the theory of judicial interpretation to encourage the judges to limit how they exercise their own power. The assertion of judicial restraint is that the judges should hesitate in striking down laws unless in the instance where they are unconstitutional (Roosevelt, 2018).

Those who advocate for the theory have the notion that the judges have no authority to act as policymakers such that in deciding the questions of constitutional law, the judicially restrained jurist need to believe that it is important to defer to the intent of legislative and have general strictness and a textualist view of the interpretation.

Under judicial restraint, the judges need to decide cases based on the aspects of the original content of the writers of the constitution, a precedent which refers to the past decisions in earlier cases and that the court should policy making to others. The term restraint is to mean that they do not set new policies with their decisions but they stick to what the framers intended, making decisions strictly according to what the constitution says.

The importance of judicial restraint is that it counsels the judges to be cautious regarding the enforcement of their views of what the constitution means (Roosevelt, 2018). Giving judges less freedom to decide cases based on the policy preferences helps to protect the rights of the citizens since it reduces levels of bases compared to judicial activism that allows for interpretation according to what they think it means.

Textualism

Judges should make their rulings based on the wording of the law and not benefit the society. Textualism is the approach that they should use to interpret the statutory laws. The essence of having textualist judges is that they provide the greatest possible guarantee that the judiciary will perform its duties of safeguarding the constitution and the rule of law (Krishnakumar, Anita, 2018). It is difficult to effectuate textualism thought it is a great way of interpreting the constitution and making rulings.

The ruling should not edge on benefiting the society but more on the part of basing their argument on the wording of the law because it is from that point that the society will benefit. Textualism is grounded in the belief that the responsibility of the judges is to enforce the constitution and the laws that conform to it and it is the reason why officials in the court systems take a constitutional oath.

If the law wording is clear, the judge need not go further to explain. However, in the case where the words tend to be ambiguous, the judges attempt to discern their meaning with the use of rules of construction that are well-developed. Textualism is crucial as it provides a better and greater certainty in the law thus leading to a greater predictability and better respect for the rule of law.

Textualism is not the same as the doctrine of original intent where these judges determine and enforce the intent of the individuals that wrote the constitution. however, there is a good overlap existing between the concepts of textualism and originalism (Krishnakumar, Anita, 2018). In a contract, the words of the law provide the best evidence of the intent. However, it could appear highly subjective to discern the intent through the legislative records and articles from the newspapers.

In the case when a law gets enacted and the agreement made focuses on the words rather than the intent, judges will enforce the words. Textualists ensure that they do not disagree over essential principles and their belief is that the laws and regulations that do not conform to the constitution are void. Thus, the judges need to rule according to textualism and originalism and not focus on benefiting the society.

The judges should not interpret the constitution in the light of changing circumstances because written constitutions cannot easily cope with the changes that take place over a given course of time (Scalia, 2018). As time passes, there are changes happening to the condition of a country and the constitution requires revisions and modifications to ensure that they deal with the changes accordingly.

With the use of a written constitution that is rigid, it is not easily amenable to these revisions and thus, judges need to stick to a formal way of interpretation which in this case is originalism and textualism. In the incident where the constitution fails to cope with the changing times, it may lead to the revolt against the government because the public sees that the importance of their opinion decreases and written laws become the areas to consider.

Importance of constitution interpretation

Constitution interpretation is important in the court systems and varies from one state to another. Individuals need to consider the law and act towards its provisions. The judges whose role is to interpret the constitution and make rulings should emphasize the need of textualism and originalism rather than benefiting the society or interpreting in the light of changing circumstances as it helps in maintaining consistency and convenience of the law.

The court should also put emphasis on issues regarding the judges in that they are not at liberty to ignore or replace the existing provisions of the constitution on the basis that it does not agree with the moral codes of the society even with genuine difficulties. Judges need to use judicial restraint in interpreting the constitution and that textualism is how we should interpret statutory laws and not through judicial activism and judges should not legislate from the bench.

Works cited

Dworkin, Ronald. "Judicial discretion." The Rule of Law and the Separation of Powers. Routledge, 2017. 157-171.

Eskridge Jr, William N. "Interpreting Law." (2016): 58.

Kay, Richard S. "Construction, Originalist Interpretation and the Complete Constitution." U. Pa. J. Const. L. Online 19 (2016): 1.

Krishnakumar, Anita S. "Textualism and Statutory Precedents." Va. L. Rev. 104 (2018): 157.

Roosevelt, Kermit. Judicial restraint, Law. (2018)

Scalia, Antonin. A matter of interpretation: Federal courts and the law: Federal courts a...