The following is a great interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano about justice and the Constitution.
Judge Andrew Napolitano on Chaotic Courts and 'Unconstitutional' Justice in the United States
Daily Bell: Would you classify yourself as an Austrian?
Judge Napolitano: I would classify myself as a person who believes in the Austrian School of Economics – absolutely. The books that have influenced me the most in my life, I would list as: Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton, The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater and The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek.
Daily Bell: You were the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. How did your views evolve from this point forward to where you are today?
Judge Napolitano: Well, being the youngest was a coincidence of biology, I was appointed very young because Tom Kane, Governor Kane at the time, was interested in very young people who wanted to make the judiciary a life-time career. The New Jersey constitution requires that you practice law for ten years before you are eligible for the full-time judiciary; I began practicing law at age 25 and was appointed to the bench at age 36, so that is about as early as you could possibly do it. Then I wrote a book about Constitutional Chaos, What happens when the government breaks its own laws. I have always been on the Libertarian side of things but being a judge in a criminal court was enough to lock the door and throw away the key, so to speak. You spend so much of your time observing the government's efforts to evade, avoid and otherwise dodge the Constitution. And if you believe the Constitution means what ii says, and you take your oath seriously, then you generally become scandalized at the things done by both the police and prosecutors. I described this intellectual odyssey in this book.
Daily Bell: What is justice in your opinion – having sat on the bench?
Judge Napolitano: I don't think I can answer that in a simple paragraph. But justice is the enforcement of the fair response to human behavior consistent with natural law and consistent with the rule of law. So that means that you have to accept that the Declaration of Independence is not just a Jeffersonian musing, but is fundamental to American values. Our rights come from our humanity, which is a gift from God; they don't come from the government, so they can't be taken away by the government. You have to accept the role of government as an arbiter with respect to the infringement of those rights whether by an executive or legislative branch, or whether by a private person. Really there is no formula other than recognizing natural rights, accepting the fundamental law of the land, being fair and being brutally honest and having no interest in the outcome.
Daily Bell: What do you think of the Constitution and how it was written and the principles it espouses?
Judge Napolitano: When it was written it had some defects in it. It permitted slavery; it even permitted the slave trade. So one can love the restraint to impose on government, and one can love the bill of rights. One can appreciate the separation of powers within the federal government and the federal system as it relates to sovereign states that can act as a check to the federal government. But once we overcame things like discrimination based on race, and discrimination based on gender, it is a brilliant document that guarantees liberty and ensures the separation of power. Now unfortunately it has been harmed by at least two amendments that are unconstitutional. Now here is an interesting question: Can a part of the Constitution be unconstitutional? The answer is yes. The 16th amendment and the 17th amendment encapsulate the income tax and the changing of the manner in which the US Senate is elected. So the Constitution we have today is nowhere near the beautiful balanced instrument of limited government that the framers gave us. It's barely a shadow of it's original self.
Read the whole thing here: Judge Andrew Napolitano on Chaotic Courts and 'Unconstitutional' Justice in the United States
