第六篇

Judges, Democracy, and Natural Law

(1) Though people on both sides regret for them, these annual summer disputes over Supreme Court nominees can be valuable exercises in civic education. The Robert Borkathon of 1987 forced millions of Americans to think about the role of a constitution in a democracy: the proper way to interpret 200-year-old phrases, the conflict between majority rule and individual freedom, and so on.

(2) This summer President Bush’s ______ of Clarence Thomas has unexpectedly plunged the nation even deeper into the pool of first principles. America finds itself debating natural law. An enthusiasm for something called “natural law” is one of the repeated themes in Thomas’ slim collection of writings and speeches. What he means by natural law and what uses he would put it to as a life-tenured? Supreme Court Justice are not clear. This justifiably alarms some people, who are worried that “natural law” could become an excuse for a conser-vative judge to impose his political agenda — just as conservatives have accused liberal judges of using “pri-vacy” to do the same thing.

(3) In fact, though, the two questions can be separated. Is there something called natural law? And is it a le-gitimate basis for judges to overrule the wishes of the majority as expressed in laws of a less elevated sort?

(4) At this point in American history, the answer to the first question is beyond challenge. Yes, as far as the U.S. is concerned, natural law exists. The “Laws of Nature” are right there in the first sentence of the Declara-tion of Independence. The second and most famous sentence provides a perfect definition of natural law: human beings are “endowed? by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights,” including “ Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (5) Where do these rights come from? Some may have trouble with the concept of a divine creator. Others may find it overly metaphysical? to insist that every human being has these rights in a world where most people are plainly unfree to exercise them. But few can doubt that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are what a civilized society ought to strive to provide its members. As the Declaration says, that is the reason “Govern-ments are instituted.” It is “self-evident.” That’s good enough for me.

(6) But just because rights exist, this does not mean it is the role of judges to enforce them. The ______ of ju-dicial review — the power of unelected judges to overrule the democratic branches of government — is a funny business. Judges do not have that power in other major democracies, and it is not explicitly authorized in the U.S. Constitution. It emerges, rather, from the structure of our government. As Justice John Marshall first reasoned in Marbury vs. Madison (1803): faced with a conflict between a law and a constitutional provision, judges must honor the Constitution. All government officials should do the same. The Supreme Court’s inter-pretation of the Constitution is definitive only because procedurally it comes last.

(7) The Constitution lists certain rights, and others (such as the right to vote) are implied in the structure of government it sets up. But nothing in the constitutional structure of the government gives the Supreme Court authority to overrule the other branches on the basis of unwritten natural law. Judicial review, a bold claim at first, is now so well established that we’ve come to feel that a right doesn’t exist unless a judge can enforce it. But enforcing a right means interpreting it, and exclusive power to interpret a concept as vague as natural law should not be given to the unelected branch of government. The job of protecting our nonconstitutional rights belongs to those who most directly “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” as the Declara-tion has it: elected officials.

(8) The Declaration speaks of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution refers more lit-erally to “l(fā)ife, liberty, or property.” It’s an illuminating difference. Furthermore, the Constitution does not guar-antee these values in absolute terms. It protects them only from deprivation by the government itself, and even in that regard it promises only procedural fairness and equal treatment. The authors were surely wise to narrow the focus. What would be left of democracy if judges could roam the landscape striking down anything that — in their opinion — interfered with somebody’s pursuit of happiness?

(9) All this is not to say that natural-law concepts have no role to play in constitutional interpretation. Many people, for example, find it hard to understand why freedom of speech must be extended to Nazis and others who do not believe in free speech themselves and would deny it to others if they could. The answer is that the Bill of Rights is based on the theory of natural law, not on the alternative theory of a social contract. You are ______ to these rights simply because you are a human being, not because you have agreed, literally or meta-phorically, to honor them.

(10) Majestic phrases like “due process of law” require analysis. Even the strictest constructionists would ac-cept that the natural-law thinking of the 18th century is useful in divining the framers’ “original intent.”

(11) Some enthusiasts see the Ninth Amendment — which provides that the list of rights in the Constitution “shall not be interpreted to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — as a direct incorporation of natural law. The fact that these enthusiasts include would-be judicial activists of both the left and the right ought to dim the enthusiasm of both groups. The point is that the people do have rights not derived from the Constitu-tion — natural rights, if you will — but judges have no special authority to enforce those rights.

(12) Clarence Thomas may well be claiming no special authority for judges when he invokes? natural law and natural rights. In that case, there is no problem. If he has more ambitious notions, there is a serious problem. And the fact that liberal Justices may have had overreaching notions of their own in the past is mere irony.

【參考譯文】法官、民主與自然法

(1) 盡管兩邊人馬都對每年夏天最高法院****官提名時的爭執(zhí)沒有好感，它其實大可以作為公民教育的寶貴教材。1987年因博卡桑被提名而引發(fā)的馬拉松式爭辯，迫使數(shù)百萬美國人去思考憲法在民主政體中所扮演的角色：200年前寫下來的條文該如何詮釋，多數(shù)決定與個人自由之間的沖突又該如何調解。

(2) 今夏布什總統(tǒng)出人意料地提名托馬斯，使全國更加深陷于基本原則的泥沼。美國突然間掀起了一股論辨自然法的風潮。托馬斯其人論述不豐，可是對所謂“自然法”的熱中是他書中反復出現(xiàn)的主題之一。到目前為止，沒人知道他說的自然法到底是什么東西，以及他當上了終身職的****官之后要怎樣運用自然法。也難怪有不少人會因此而感到不安了，他們擔心“自然法”會變成這位保守派法官推行他政治計劃的借口——就好像保守派曾經(jīng)指控自由派法官利用“隱私權”來達到同樣的目的一樣。

(3) 事實上，這兩個問題可以分開來談。首先，有沒有自然法這回事？其次，法官能不能用自然法為充分的基礎，來推翻較低位階法律中所展現(xiàn)的多數(shù)人意見。

(4)從美國歷史發(fā)展至此來看，第一個問題的答案是確切無疑的。是的，在美國，自然法是存在的。在獨立宣言頭一句中“自然的法則”一語便道盡了一切。最有名的是第二個句子為自然法寫下了完美的定義：“造物主賦予人類無法剝奪的權利”，包括“生命權、自由權，以及追求幸福的權利。”

(5) 這些權利從何而來？有些人可能難以接受“神圣造物主”的觀念。而且，會有一些人認為，如果說每一個人與生俱來就擁有權利，然而，世界上卻有大部分的人明顯地不能自由行使這些權利，那么這種說法未免也太空洞了�？墒牵�很少有人會反對文明社會應該為它的人民設法提供生命、自由、與追求幸福的權利。如同獨立宣言所稱，那就是“設立政府”的原因所在。而這也是“不辯自明”的。我可以接受這種說法。

(6) 可是，權利存在，并不表示說法官就該扮演執(zhí)行它的角色。司法復審的制度——非民選的法官有權否決政府民選部門（行政、立法）的決定——這是滿奇怪的制度。其它主要民主國家的法官并沒有這樣的權利，在美國憲法中也沒有明文授予法官這種權利。其實它是來自于美國的政府結構。****官約翰? 馬歇爾在《馬伯里對麥迪遜案》（1803）中首度做出這樣的推理：面對法律與憲法條款沖突時，法官應以憲法為重，其余所有的政府官員亦然。最高法院的釋憲具有最高的權威，只因為它在程序上排在最后。

(7)憲法中列舉了一些權利出來，還有一些別的權利（例如投票權）是在憲法組成的政府構造中暗示存在的�？墒钦�府的憲法結構中并沒有那一點可以賦予最高法院權利，令其僅憑不具文的自然法就足以翻推行政、立法部門的決定。司法復審在剛提出時是很大膽的主張，現(xiàn)在則已根深蒂固，我們甚至覺得除了法官能夠執(zhí)行的權利之外別無權利可言�？墒菆�(zhí)行一項權利表示執(zhí)行者要詮釋權利的含義。像自然法這么模糊的概念，詮釋它的責任不能完全交給政府中非民選的部門——司法機關。誰來保護我們憲法中未明言的權利？根據(jù)《獨立宣言》所說，應該是最直接“從被治理者手中取得權力者”，也就是民選官員。

(8)《獨立宣言》說的是“生命、自由、與追求幸福”的權利。憲法則比較平實地提及“生命、自由、或財產(chǎn)”。這兩者之間的差別頗具深意。而且，憲法中并不保障人們絕對擁有這些權利。它只是保護這些權利不受政府本身的剝奪，而且即使在這一方面也只能保障程序的公平與平等待遇。憲法起草人把范圍縮小是聰明的。如果法官能夠四處橫行，打倒一切只要他們認為是妨礙某人追求幸福的事物，民主會變成什么面目？

(9)這樣說并不表示自然法的觀念在釋憲工作上沒有意義。例如，有許多人不了解，為什么像納粹這一類的人，他們自己并不支持言論自由，而且還想盡辦法剝奪別人的言論自由，憲法竟然也要保障他們的言論自由。這個道理在于：美國憲法修正案中保障言論等自由的人權條款是建立在自然法的理論上，而不是建立于另一種理論——社會合約上。你享有這些權利，只因為你是人，不是因為你以文字或象征方式同意要支持這些權利。

(10) 像“正當法律程序”這類莊嚴的詞語需要在文意上加以分析。就連最堅持要狹義解釋憲法的人也會同意，18世紀有關自然法的思想有助于推測立憲者的“原意”。

(11)有一些熱中人士認為憲法第九修正案就是直接把自然法納入憲法的法源。這條修正案表示，憲法中列舉出來的權利“不得被詮釋為除此之外人民就不擁有其它的權利，或者其它的權利就不受重視。”可是，這些熱中人士當中包括了左右兩派的司法活躍分子——這一點就足以讓兩邊人馬冷卻一下。重點在于：人民確實擁有非來自于憲法的權利——喜歡的話你可以叫它自然權利——可是法官并沒有特別的職權可以執(zhí)行這些權利。

(12)托馬斯提及自然法與自然權利時，可能并沒有主張法官有特別的職權。如果是這樣的話，一切就都沒有問題。如果他的野心尚不只于此，那么問題就嚴重了。至于從前自由派的法官自己也可能和托馬斯一樣，曾經(jīng)有非分的念頭，這只不過是一大諷刺罷了。