Thanks Graham, I had never heard of New Caledonia until I read your post, To me Caledonia is synonymous with Scotland.
Slight correction on law in the US. Our Constitution gives us three distinct and supposedly equal branches of Government (in numerical order). 1. The Legislative Branch, bicameral, Senate and House of Representatives, is the only branch enabled to write laws. The Constitution restricts the subjects on which matters the Legislative Branch is allowed to write laws, but is quite clear no other Branch is allowed to write law. 2. The Executive Branch, the Presidency and those agencies necessary to support the Executive Branch and the Government in general. Main duty is to approve or veto legislation written by the Legislative Branch and to enact those approved Laws. 3. The Judicial Branch consisting of Federal Courts, Federal Appellate and circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. The duty of the Supreme Court is to assure that any law passed by the Legislative Branch and approved by the Executive Branch is in agreement with the Supreme Law of the Land: The Constitution of the United States and prior laws already passed. From time to time Supreme Courts have overstepped their boundaries and created new laws contrary to their right. This current Court has done this more often and more vagrantly than previous Courts.
That is why you read so many adverse posts on Substack. Our Constitution is relatively short, compared to other countries and States. Most of us expect laws and courts to uphold the Constitution as it is written.
Rembar doesn't dispute, nor do I, anything of what you say. But what Rembar and I are at one on is the issue of how law comes to be promulgated, and that really has nothing to do with the constitution, which is, itself, nothing more than just another law.
The piece makes no conclusion as to how the Supreme Court of the US works, but, if you push me to it, I'll draw a conclusion for you insofar as it's not implied in the text itself: ingenious lawyers formulate winning arguments that get presented to the court in writs of certiori which they persuade the bench to find in favour of by means that go outside the bounds of what is normally regarded as legal argument.
Now, what should normally happen is that a lawyer looks at the law and decides who is right and, if the law is worth anything, it should be manifest to counsel for both parties who is right and who is wrong. The judge's job should be an easy one.
However, that is not what happens because, as Rembar puts it, lawyers are driven to want to win, even if they are resigned to the inadequacy of their client's argument. So they invent new legal arguments, and present them to judges who have less incentive to want to win, or at least should have less incentive to want to win, because they're supposed to be impartial. So, the question repeats itself: how non-partisan is the Supreme Court in the decisions it hands down? [You really don't need to answer that.]
What is happening in New Caledonia is that France negotiated a peace with the native population in 1998 in which it agreed to 3 referenda on independence. The first was a narrow defeat for independence. The second was a much narrower defeat - not far off the percentage that took the UK out of the EU. A few percent is a few percent. When the third came, it was just in the aftermath of the pandemic: the natives said, "Hold on till we have time to do this properly, we haven't campaigned because of the pandemic restrictions." Paris said, "Sod that, you have it now or never." So the Kanaks boycotted the third referendum. Paris said, "Whoopee. Now let's jig the electorate so that there will never be a referendum in favour of independence." That's when the trouble started.
This will end either with independence for New Caledonia; or it will end with scenes like the Gaza Strip. What Paris is doing is what Harlan Crow et al do with the Supreme Court: it is fixing the law upfront and adhering to a legalism that is correct to the letter, whilst skirting the whole issue of what is just. That is how empires are created and perpetuated: by defining what justice is as being what a writ of law says, instead of what people feel in the stomachs. "Justice" is easy to achieve when you hold the sole legal power to define what it even means.
Thank you, Graham. This is so typical of people clinging to power to which they are not by Human Rights, entitled. Same situation we currently have in the US
Thanks Graham, I had never heard of New Caledonia until I read your post, To me Caledonia is synonymous with Scotland.
Slight correction on law in the US. Our Constitution gives us three distinct and supposedly equal branches of Government (in numerical order). 1. The Legislative Branch, bicameral, Senate and House of Representatives, is the only branch enabled to write laws. The Constitution restricts the subjects on which matters the Legislative Branch is allowed to write laws, but is quite clear no other Branch is allowed to write law. 2. The Executive Branch, the Presidency and those agencies necessary to support the Executive Branch and the Government in general. Main duty is to approve or veto legislation written by the Legislative Branch and to enact those approved Laws. 3. The Judicial Branch consisting of Federal Courts, Federal Appellate and circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. The duty of the Supreme Court is to assure that any law passed by the Legislative Branch and approved by the Executive Branch is in agreement with the Supreme Law of the Land: The Constitution of the United States and prior laws already passed. From time to time Supreme Courts have overstepped their boundaries and created new laws contrary to their right. This current Court has done this more often and more vagrantly than previous Courts.
That is why you read so many adverse posts on Substack. Our Constitution is relatively short, compared to other countries and States. Most of us expect laws and courts to uphold the Constitution as it is written.
Rembar doesn't dispute, nor do I, anything of what you say. But what Rembar and I are at one on is the issue of how law comes to be promulgated, and that really has nothing to do with the constitution, which is, itself, nothing more than just another law.
The piece makes no conclusion as to how the Supreme Court of the US works, but, if you push me to it, I'll draw a conclusion for you insofar as it's not implied in the text itself: ingenious lawyers formulate winning arguments that get presented to the court in writs of certiori which they persuade the bench to find in favour of by means that go outside the bounds of what is normally regarded as legal argument.
Now, what should normally happen is that a lawyer looks at the law and decides who is right and, if the law is worth anything, it should be manifest to counsel for both parties who is right and who is wrong. The judge's job should be an easy one.
However, that is not what happens because, as Rembar puts it, lawyers are driven to want to win, even if they are resigned to the inadequacy of their client's argument. So they invent new legal arguments, and present them to judges who have less incentive to want to win, or at least should have less incentive to want to win, because they're supposed to be impartial. So, the question repeats itself: how non-partisan is the Supreme Court in the decisions it hands down? [You really don't need to answer that.]
What is happening in New Caledonia is that France negotiated a peace with the native population in 1998 in which it agreed to 3 referenda on independence. The first was a narrow defeat for independence. The second was a much narrower defeat - not far off the percentage that took the UK out of the EU. A few percent is a few percent. When the third came, it was just in the aftermath of the pandemic: the natives said, "Hold on till we have time to do this properly, we haven't campaigned because of the pandemic restrictions." Paris said, "Sod that, you have it now or never." So the Kanaks boycotted the third referendum. Paris said, "Whoopee. Now let's jig the electorate so that there will never be a referendum in favour of independence." That's when the trouble started.
This will end either with independence for New Caledonia; or it will end with scenes like the Gaza Strip. What Paris is doing is what Harlan Crow et al do with the Supreme Court: it is fixing the law upfront and adhering to a legalism that is correct to the letter, whilst skirting the whole issue of what is just. That is how empires are created and perpetuated: by defining what justice is as being what a writ of law says, instead of what people feel in the stomachs. "Justice" is easy to achieve when you hold the sole legal power to define what it even means.
Thank you, Graham. This is so typical of people clinging to power to which they are not by Human Rights, entitled. Same situation we currently have in the US