An apology and applause to Chief Justice Roberts | The Business ...

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By Lauren | June 28, 2012

The big news item of the day is, of course, the Supreme Court?s opinion upholding the Obama Administration?s health care reform law. We?ll be hearing for the next several weeks what this decision likely means for American families, employers and states, undoubtedly with heavy spin from both sides of the aisle. (Then again, all those predictions may come to naught, depending on the outcome of the Presidential election. The guts of the law won?t take effect until 2014, and Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has already gone on record saying that he?ll repeal the law if elected, so all this flapdoodle may come to nothing at all.)

While the Court?s decision is big news, I was more impressed by an aspect of the decision that will probably fade from the public?s mind pretty quickly. When a friend asked me last weekend to predict what the Court would do, I reckoned that the law would be struck down in a 5-4 decision unless - and I thought this highly unlikely - Justice Kennedy broke ranks with the conservative Justices (Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito) to join the more moderate minority (Justices Bader Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan). Well, I was half right. Justice Kennedy stayed squarely in the conservative camp, just as I predicted. It was Chief Justice Roberts, whom I wrongly assumed would oppose the law because he?s usually pretty conservative, who cast the deciding vote to uphold it.

Judges, and particularly Supreme Court Justices, are supposed to vote based on their understanding of the law rather than their individual political preferences. Sadly, the Supreme Court seems to me to have become severely polarized in recent years, and I?m only one of many attorneys who?ve grown cynical about the political ?neutrality? of the Court?s decisions. Justice Roberts proved me dead wrong today, squarely stepping up to his responsibilities and basing his vote on Constitutional analysis, not personal politics. I applaud him for his judicial ethics, and apologize humbly for misjudging him. Well done, Your Honor!

Topics: Business Ethics, Legal Ethics, Professional Ethics, Social Ethics, ethics |

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