Responding to a Blawg Bleg

(Updated below, mea culpa)

My e-friend I.M. Kierkegaard has asked me (and others) to help publicise the upcoming Symposium on Judicial Selection and Independance, to be held in New York City on April 7:

On Friday April 7, 2006, there will be a SYMPOSIUM held at Fordham University School of Law in New York City on the subject of judicial selection and independence. The Symposium is free and open to the public.

The Symposium, titled "Rethinking Judicial Selection: A Critical Appraisal of Appointive Selection for State Court Judges," will focus on discussion of various models of appointive selection of state court judges.

To this legal mind, this sounds interesting. One of the biggest issues facing the legal system is the increasing degree to which the supposedly-impartial judiciary has been politicised, and anything that examines ways to remove that pressure is likely a Good Thing.

As RIA,briefly back from sabbatical, puts it:

Since I'm here anyway and thinking of judges, I must say that I'm beginning to wonder if our Supreme Court justices ought to stay strictly stateside, given the controversy over speeches delivered overseas by both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. (By the way, I selected the link for Ginsburg because this one mentions not just the South Africa speech, but also remarks she made in Australia. This is also worth reading.)*

For me, it's not so much what they said outside of the country, but what they said. Scalia's latest diatribe, in particular, is disturbing. I know that my ideal of SCOTUS judges dispassionately making decisions without much regard for politics or policy implications is largely a myth, but it is still a laudable aim. The more pronouncements of this sort that we have, the more the "unelected super-legislature" meme rings true, which is to the detriment of all in the long run.

* Update: Bad Pooh. Hasty post makes waste, RIA's larger point got lost in my initial post:

Thus, while I'm being tongue-in-cheek about traveling overseas, I'm serious when I say that I think the Supremes are getting a bit sloppy about maintaining themselves outside and above the fray. What do you think?

(My Emphasis). That's what I meant to highlight originally.

(closed circuit to RIA: I'm an idiot, sorry for the mistake.)