Foreign Rulings Not Relevant to High Court, Scalia Says

Scalia makes a good argument that foreign opinions and legal rulings from other countries should not influence the Court's reading of the Constitution.

As always, he's a strict constructionist.

But I disagree in that foreign legal rulings may not be binding, but they can be persuasive when the Court is trying to interpret the Constitution in light of modern problems of international concern which our Founders had not even contemplated.

Our Constitution is not a fixed, dead historical document which is taken out of a closet and the dust blown off every time the Court meets. It is alive and should be responsive to our changing society.

The Founders drafted it in such a way that it could serve this purpose and remain a viable set of principles that the Court must use to guide its way through uncharted waters.

Scalia's being a stick-in-the-mud -- if the Court were not allowed to look around and say, "Wow. Things have changed." then the Constitution is dead and we might as well start drafting a new one.