For his courageous committment to Jesus Christ and constitutional integrity in the office of a civil magistrate, Vision Forum presented Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker with our George Washington Man of the Year Award. But the very principled leadership which has become the hallmark of Justice Parker’s tenure as a Supreme Court justice, has placed him under the scrutiny of both the ACLU and some of the co-justices who were involved in the removal of the Ten Commandments monument placed by former Chief Justice Roy Moore. Yesterday’s Human Events magazine features an excellent article in defense of Justice Parker, by noted economist Walter Williams.

Are federal, state and local justices appointed to office to impose their personal views on society or to interpret law? Is it a judge’s duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and state constitutions in the cases of state and local judges, or is it their duty to uphold foreign law and United Nations treaties? Should what a judge sees as “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights govern court decisions, or the U.S. Constitution?....

Joel Sogol, former chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) litigation committee, filed a complaint against Judge Parker with Alabama’s Judicial Inquiry Commission. The complaint charges Parker with violating Alabama’s judicial ethics standards when he publicly criticized his eight Supreme Court colleagues and the Roper v. Simmons U.S. Supreme Court decision. Sogol says that Judge Parker’s criticism breeds contempt for the law. Sogol has it wrong. It’s the court’s failure to meet its constitutional duties that breeds contempt for the law. The Judicial Inquiry Commission can send the complaint to Alabama’s Court of the Judiciary for trial. If the court finds the complaint is justified, it can reprimand Judge Parker or remove him from office. The ACLU would love the chilling effect of reprimand or removal.

Too many of us accept the notion that judges have a monopoly on the Constitution’s interpretation. In an 1820 letter to William C. Jarvis, Thomas Jefferson warned: “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” Judge Tom Parker, and other justices who exhibit true faith and allegiance to their oaths of office, are a rare and disappearing breed. It’s men like Judge Parker we should support in our struggle against constitutional contempt by government officials.

Please read the entire article: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?print=yes&id=13586