Justices debate use of foreign precedents

WASHINGTON - It was not Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier, but by Washington standards it was a glamorous sparring match: Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer jousting at the American University law school late Thursday afternoon over whether American jurists should look to foreign legal precedents when making their decisions.

Scalia, the conservative, was the more vigorous of the two in his making his arguments and made Breyer, generally part of the court’s liberal wing, sound a tad defensive.

But the tone was cocktail-party cordial, sometimes comical, as the two justices sat across from each other in upholstered chairs with moderator Norman Dorsen between them. Although the two justices supposedly represent opposite ideological poles on the court, in fact in the 16 cases decided so far this term, they have disagreed with each other in only four.

For the non-lawyers in the audience, the event, which was broadcast live and then re-broadcast on C-SPAN, served as a preview of what Americans might see in Senate confirmation hearings if Scalia is nominated as chief justice when William Rehnquist steps down.<snip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6824149/

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If the court wants to ignore the precedents set by foreign laws, then they should start by ignoring those laws that were written in Israel about 2,000 years ago.