Open Society and Soros Foundation
about usinitiativesgrants and scholarshipsresource centernewsroom
share  print  print
News & Announcements
Grantee Spokesman Criticizes Bush's Allegations of "Activist Judges"
February 25, 2004

On February 25, the Washington Post ran an op-ed by Georgetown Law Professor Peter Edelman on behalf of Justice at Stake (JAS), a nonpartisan organization that promotes judicial independence and a U.S. Justice Fund grantee. In the piece, Edelman cites President Bush’s condemnation of “activist judges” in calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Edelman goes on to say that the term has become “a cliché—a scare phrase for either side to hurl at the other in place of substantive argument that a particular judicial decision is wrong on its merits.” The piece recalls Judge Alfred Goodwin’s “trenchant remark: ‘if the court makes a decision someone likes … it’s ‘judicial statesmanship.’ If not, it’s called ‘judicial activism.’” Following the piece, Wisconsin Public Radio conducted and aired two interviews with JAS on February 26.

back to the top of the page
share  print  print

About Us  |  Initiatives  |  Grants, Scholarships & Fellowships  |  Resource Center  |  Newsroom  |  Site Map  |  About this Site  |  Contact


Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative License.
©2009 Open Society Institute. Some rights reserved.

400 West 59th Street  |  New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.  |  Tel 1-212-548-0600

OSI-New York, OSI-Budapest, OSF-London, OSI-Paris and OSI-Brussels are separate organizations that operate independently
yet cooperate informally with each other. This website, a joint presentation, is intended to promote each organization’s interests.