Unworthy precedent

So the elite, enlightened, globalists among us would open our borders and have us incorporate input from the rest of the world when crafting our laws and interpreting our Constitution, huh? Remember the questions from Democrats during the hearings of the newest U.S. Supreme Court justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, concerning utilization of international law in their deliberations?

I have to ask myself what they think of the international precedent (cue thunderous music and reverential spotlight) set when a court in Cairo, Egypt sentenced a blogger to four years in prison for “contempt for religion” and “insulting the president.”

Seeing as most of the push for using international law as a touchstone for our American statutes is coming from the intellectual (and ineffectual) left, I’m curious how this ruling, sentencing a blogger for pursuing two of the left’s favorite activities, will play. Is this a precedent they want to have considered when the next freedom of speech question comes before the court?

Egypt, home to more than 70 million (mainly Muslim) residents, seemed satisfied with the verdict, though some wanted their pound of flesh. From the story:

“Many people expressed the view that Abdel Kareem should be killed for what he wrote, and each of them shared their preferred way to kill him: stabbing, hanging, and of course, the classic beheading. One actually asked a lawyer if it was legal to now kill him, since this verdict clearly brands him as an apostate, and the Sharia punishment for an apostasy is death. People were talking about killing him in the most casual manner, as if he was no longer a human being to them.”

Here’s a strong precedent. Hey, a third of the world is Islamic and at least pays lip-service to the merits of Sharia...now that’s a lot of weight behind this international case law. If it seems absurd that we should even consider following this legal course, then how do we decide which precedents to consider? There’s the problem…you can’t and maintain the supposed impartiality of the justice system. By picking and choosing precedents from the international community, the justices would be introducing their own prejudices into a supposedly impartial process. They’d be straying from looking at the law of the international community as a whole, instead picking and choosing among various venues to back up their own pet beliefs.

Our system is grounded in the Constitution, which has served as a pretty good model for more than 200 years. The legislative and executive branches craft the laws, and the courts ensure they fall within constitutional guidelines.

If international input is desirable, it should be considered at the legislative level, when the laws are fashioned, and where there is opportunity for debate. It should not be considered at the judicial level where the consensus of international law is anybody’s guess and I, for one, have no wish to see anyone in this country jailed for contempt of religion or insulting the President.