Chief Justice urges inter-branch harmony
NOTE TO READERS: Although the Chief Justice’s annual report was not to be published before 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, it appears that an Associated Press report has appeared before 9 p.m. Monday. Because that report has been picked up by at least some newspapers’ online editions, and by an online re-publisher, this blog is releasing its story a few minutes before the requested release time.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., disclosed on Tuesday that he has asked the federal courts’ administrative arm to suggest new ways to improve ”communication and cooperation” with the other two branches of the U.S. government. In his year-end report on the federal judiciary, the Chief Justice said: “The separate branches may not always agree on matters of mutual interest, but each should strive, through respectful exchange of insights and ideas, to know and appreciate where the others stand.” (The text of the annual report can be found here. It was released early Tuesday as the new year opened.)
Roberts did not suggest any specific incident or cause for pondering new ways to improve the ties between the courts, the Executive and Congress. But he mentioned the assignment to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts to explore that issue as the first item on a list of initiatives he said he would continue from the work of the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.
The new Chief Justice also put in his annual pitch for increased salaries for federal judges, with a more optimistic note than in recent years. “Over the past year,” he said,”congressional leaders and a wide range of groups that value a capable and independent Judiciary have made progress on this matter.”
He noted that the House Judiciary Committee has approved a pay raise, to “restore judicial pay to the same level that judges would have received if Congress had granted them the same cost-of-living adjustments that other federal employees have received since 1989.”
While the new measure would not be a “full restoration” of the pay differential, the Chief Justice said it would be “a significant one.” He urged the Senate and the full Congress to complete the salary increase legislation promptly in the new year.
The annual report includes an appendix providing data on the business of the federal courts — including a 12 percent drop, the second declilne in two years, in the newly filed caseloads of the federal courts of appeals. The report said that criminal appeals and federal prisioner challengers were down because of the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in U.S. v. Booker, making the federal sentencing guideline system advisory rather than mandatory. The report also said there have been fewer appeals from immigration rulings.
I particularly like this line: “More than two hundred years after the American Revolution, much of the world remains subject to judicial systems that provide doubtful opportunities for challenging government action as contrary to law, or receiving a fair adjudication of criminal charges.” I wonder how the Roberts Court will address the continuing situation at Guantanamo Bay.
Comment by Patrick Luff — January 2, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
Hopefully he will read the third Geneva Convention and follow its protocols.
Comment by Charles A. Pierce — January 2, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
He might also find the UN Convention Against Torture instructive.
Comment by Patrick Luff — January 3, 2008 @ 11:10 am
Sorry, I also forgot the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Comment by Patrick Luff — January 3, 2008 @ 11:11 am
The Third Geneva Convention is the document that is used to treat Enemy Prisoners of War and the crimes that they may have committed on the battlefield or while being held by the detaining power. Using your logic every EPW from the Second World War, German or Italian could have gone in to US Courts to win their freedom. The Torture question is a serious one and needs to be looked at the detaining power but has no place in the civil court system. The vehicle to use is the Courts Martial system. The length of Detention is the length of the War, if that be 100 years the it is 100 years.
Comment by Charles A. Pierce — January 4, 2008 @ 2:03 pm