Topic: Generalities & Resolving Contradictions in Law
Senator: Grassley
Date: SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
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GRASSLEY: Judge Roberts, during the Souter nomination, I questioned -- and I did not go back and check the records just to see exactly what I said -- but I questioned, in some way, about how he would interpret statutory law.
Justice Souter responded to some of my questions by talking about vacuums in the law, specifically that the courts -- and these are his words -- "fill vacuums that are maybe left by Congress."
This concept was troubling to me then and remains so today. If Justice Souter is listening, I would like to say to him: Well, you know, maybe Congress intended to leave some vacuums.
(LAUGHTER)
So I would like to know: How much filling in of vacuums in the law left by Congress will you do as a Supreme Court justice? Do you think this is the way for the court to be activists in that courts will be deciding how to fill in generalities and resolve contradictions in law?
ROBERTS: Well, I don't want to directly comment on what Justice Souter said. He is either going to be a colleague or continue to be one of my bosses.
(LAUGHTER)
So I want to maintain good relations in either case.
But I do think it's important to recognize in construing legislation that sometimes a decision has been made not to address a particular problem. That isn't a license for the courts to go ahead and address it because that would be overriding a congressional decision.
At the same time, as it's always the case, courts are sometimes put in the position of having to decide a question that Congress has left deliberately or inadvertently unanswered.
We see that in the issue of what remedies are available under an implied right of action when Congress has not spelled them out. The courts sometimes have to address that sort of question.
And if it's presented in a case, it's unavoidable.
But, again, I resort back to the bedrock principle of legitimacy in the American system for courts which is that any authority to interpret the law, any authority to interpret the Constitution, derives from the obligation to decide a particular case or controversy.
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