PSC 2302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Antonin Scalia, Radical Change, Textualism
13 Apr 2017
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Judges cannot revel in the ambiguities of the text-- judges must resolve them. o: direct and immediate interpretation of a justice"s interpretation of the text has consequences. The constitution: affected: a public text, charter of a gov and a people, the justice of the supreme court must apply it to resolve public controversies. In summary, the text"s following aspects influence the way he reads the constitution: public nature, obligatory character, consequentialist aspect. Judicial power resides in the authority to give meaning to the constitution: debate is really about how to read the text. Intention of the framers : demands the justices to discern exactly what the framers thought about the question. However the framers themselves did not agree about the application or meaning of certain parts of the text, so they hid their differences in the generality. Unclear whose intention is relevant -- that of the drafters, the congressional disputants, or the ratifiers in the states.
