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| | National - issues in your country | | National - issues in your country |
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| − | In legal decisions, invocation of "public policy" is a catch-all expression for the court to rule what it thinks is best for society. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in criticizing this approach:<ref>''United States v. Rutherford'', 442 U.S. 544, 554-55 (1979)</ref> | + | In legal decisions, invocation of "public policy" is a catch-all expression for the court to rule what it thinks is best for society. Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote for a unanimous [[U.S. Supreme Court]] in criticizing this approach:<ref>''United States v. Rutherford'', 442 U.S. 544, 554-55 (1979)</ref> |
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| | :Under our constitutional framework, federal courts do not sit as councils of revision, empowered to rewrite legislation in accord with their own conceptions of prudent public policy. See ''Anderson v. Wilson'', 289 U.S. 20, 27 (1933). Only when a literal construction of a statute yields results so manifestly unreasonable that they could not fairly be attributed to congressional design will an exception to statutory language be judicially implied. | | :Under our constitutional framework, federal courts do not sit as councils of revision, empowered to rewrite legislation in accord with their own conceptions of prudent public policy. See ''Anderson v. Wilson'', 289 U.S. 20, 27 (1933). Only when a literal construction of a statute yields results so manifestly unreasonable that they could not fairly be attributed to congressional design will an exception to statutory language be judicially implied. |
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| | + | Similarly, the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] explained the role of public policy in court decisions in ''Rapanos v. United States'':<ref>126 S. Ct. 2208, 2233 (2006)</ref> |
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| | + | :Finally, we could not agree more with the dissent's statement, post, at ____, 165 L. Ed. 2d, at 215, that "[w]hether the benefits of particular conservation measures outweigh their costs is a classic question of public policy that should not be answered by appointed judges." Neither, however, should it be answered by appointed officers of the Corps of Engineers in contradiction of congressional direction. It is the dissent's opinion, and not ours, which appeals not to a reasonable interpretation of enacted text, but to the great environmental benefits that a patently unreasonable interpretation can achieve. We have begun our discussion by mentioning, to be sure, the high costs imposed by that interpretation--but they are in no way the basis for our decision, which rests, plainly and simply, upon the limited meaning that can be borne by the phrase "waters of the United States." |
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| | == References == | | == References == |
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| | <references/> | | <references/> |