第六篇

Judges, Democracy, and Natural Law

(1) Though people on both sides regret for them, these annual summer disputes over Supreme Court nominees can be valuable exercises in civic education. The Robert Borkathon of 1987 forced millions of Americans to think about the role of a constitution in a democracy: the proper way to interpret 200-year-old phrases, the conflict between majority rule and individual freedom, and so on.

(2) This summer President Bush’s ______ of Clarence Thomas has unexpectedly plunged the nation even deeper into the pool of first principles. America finds itself debating natural law. An enthusiasm for something called “natural law” is one of the repeated themes in Thomas’ slim collection of writings and speeches. What he means by natural law and what uses he would put it to as a life-tenured? Supreme Court Justice are not clear. This justifiably alarms some people, who are worried that “natural law” could become an excuse for a conser-vative judge to impose his political agenda — just as conservatives have accused liberal judges of using “pri-vacy” to do the same thing.

(3) In fact, though, the two questions can be separated. Is there something called natural law? And is it a le-gitimate basis for judges to overrule the wishes of the majority as expressed in laws of a less elevated sort?

(4) At this point in American history, the answer to the first question is beyond challenge. Yes, as far as the U.S. is concerned, natural law exists. The “Laws of Nature” are right there in the first sentence of the Declara-tion of Independence. The second and most famous sentence provides a perfect definition of natural law: human beings are “endowed? by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights,” including “ Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (5) Where do these rights come from? Some may have trouble with the concept of a divine creator. Others may find it overly metaphysical? to insist that every human being has these rights in a world where most people are plainly unfree to exercise them. But few can doubt that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are what a civilized society ought to strive to provide its members. As the Declaration says, that is the reason “Govern-ments are instituted.” It is “self-evident.” That’s good enough for me.

(6) But just because rights exist, this does not mean it is the role of judges to enforce them. The ______ of ju-dicial review — the power of unelected judges to overrule the democratic branches of government — is a funny business. Judges do not have that power in other major democracies, and it is not explicitly authorized in the U.S. Constitution. It emerges, rather, from the structure of our government. As Justice John Marshall first reasoned in Marbury vs. Madison (1803): faced with a conflict between a law and a constitutional provision, judges must honor the Constitution. All government officials should do the same. The Supreme Court’s inter-pretation of the Constitution is definitive only because procedurally it comes last.

(7) The Constitution lists certain rights, and others (such as the right to vote) are implied in the structure of government it sets up. But nothing in the constitutional structure of the government gives the Supreme Court authority to overrule the other branches on the basis of unwritten natural law. Judicial review, a bold claim at first, is now so well established that we’ve come to feel that a right doesn’t exist unless a judge can enforce it. But enforcing a right means interpreting it, and exclusive power to interpret a concept as vague as natural law should not be given to the unelected branch of government. The job of protecting our nonconstitutional rights belongs to those who most directly “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” as the Declara-tion has it: elected officials.

(8) The Declaration speaks of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution refers more lit-erally to “l(fā)ife, liberty, or property.” It’s an illuminating difference. Furthermore, the Constitution does not guar-antee these values in absolute terms. It protects them only from deprivation by the government itself, and even in that regard it promises only procedural fairness and equal treatment. The authors were surely wise to narrow the focus. What would be left of democracy if judges could roam the landscape striking down anything that — in their opinion — interfered with somebody’s pursuit of happiness?

(9) All this is not to say that natural-law concepts have no role to play in constitutional interpretation. Many people, for example, find it hard to understand why freedom of speech must be extended to Nazis and others who do not believe in free speech themselves and would deny it to others if they could. The answer is that the Bill of Rights is based on the theory of natural law, not on the alternative theory of a social contract. You are ______ to these rights simply because you are a human being, not because you have agreed, literally or meta-phorically, to honor them.

(10) Majestic phrases like “due process of law” require analysis. Even the strictest constructionists would ac-cept that the natural-law thinking of the 18th century is useful in divining the framers’ “original intent.”

(11) Some enthusiasts see the Ninth Amendment — which provides that the list of rights in the Constitution “shall not be interpreted to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — as a direct incorporation of natural law. The fact that these enthusiasts include would-be judicial activists of both the left and the right ought to dim the enthusiasm of both groups. The point is that the people do have rights not derived from the Constitu-tion — natural rights, if you will — but judges have no special authority to enforce those rights.

(12) Clarence Thomas may well be claiming no special authority for judges when he invokes? natural law and natural rights. In that case, there is no problem. If he has more ambitious notions, there is a serious problem. And the fact that liberal Justices may have had overreaching notions of their own in the past is mere irony.

【參考譯文】法官、民主與自然法

(1) 盡管兩邊人馬都對(duì)每年夏天比較高法院****官提名時(shí)的爭(zhēng)執(zhí)沒(méi)有好感，它其實(shí)大可以作為公民教育的寶貴教材。1987年因博卡桑被提名而引發(fā)的馬拉松式爭(zhēng)辯，迫使數(shù)百萬(wàn)美國(guó)人去思考憲法在民主政體中所扮演的角色：200年前寫下來(lái)的條文該如何詮釋，多數(shù)決定與個(gè)人自由之間的沖突又該如何調(diào)解。

(2) 今夏布什總統(tǒng)出人意料地提名托馬斯，使全國(guó)更加深陷于基本原則的泥沼。美國(guó)突然間掀起了一股論辨自然法的風(fēng)潮。托馬斯其人論述不豐，可是對(duì)所謂“自然法”的熱中是他書中反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的主題之一。到目前為止，沒(méi)人知道他說(shuō)的自然法到底是什么東西，以及他當(dāng)上了終身職的****官之后要怎樣運(yùn)用自然法。也難怪有不少人會(huì)因此而感到不安了，他們擔(dān)心“自然法”會(huì)變成這位保守派法官推行他政治計(jì)劃的借口——就好像保守派曾經(jīng)指控自由派法官利用“隱私權(quán)”來(lái)達(dá)到同樣的目的一樣。

(3) 事實(shí)上，這兩個(gè)問(wèn)題可以分開來(lái)談。首先，有沒(méi)有自然法這回事？其次，法官能不能用自然法為充分的基礎(chǔ)，來(lái)推翻較低位階法律中所展現(xiàn)的多數(shù)人意見。

(4)從美國(guó)歷史發(fā)展至此來(lái)看，第一個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案是確切無(wú)疑的。是的，在美國(guó)，自然法是存在的。在獨(dú)立宣言頭一句中“自然的法則”一語(yǔ)便道盡了一切。比較有名的是第二個(gè)句子為自然法寫下了完美的定義：“造物主賦予人類無(wú)法剝奪的權(quán)利”，包括“生命權(quán)、自由權(quán)，以及追求幸福的權(quán)利�！�

(5) 這些權(quán)利從何而來(lái)？有些人可能難以接受“神圣造物主”的觀念。而且，會(huì)有一些人認(rèn)為，如果說(shuō)每一個(gè)人與生俱來(lái)就擁有權(quán)利，然而，世界上卻有大部分的人明顯地不能自由行使這些權(quán)利，那么這種說(shuō)法未免也太空洞了�？墒牵�很少有人會(huì)反對(duì)文明社會(huì)應(yīng)該為它的人民設(shè)法提供生命、自由、與追求幸福的權(quán)利。如同獨(dú)立宣言所稱，那就是“設(shè)立政府”的原因所在。而這也是“不辯自明”的。我可以接受這種說(shuō)法。

(6) 可是，權(quán)利存在，并不表示說(shuō)法官就該扮演執(zhí)行它的角色。司法復(fù)審的制度——非民選的法官有權(quán)否決政府民選部門（行政、立法）的決定——這是滿奇怪的制度。其它主要民主國(guó)家的法官并沒(méi)有這樣的權(quán)利，在美國(guó)憲法中也沒(méi)有明文授予法官這種權(quán)利。其實(shí)它是來(lái)自于美國(guó)的政府結(jié)構(gòu)。****官約翰? 馬歇爾在《馬伯里對(duì)麥迪遜案》（1803）中首度做出這樣的推理：面對(duì)法律與憲法條款沖突時(shí)，法官應(yīng)以憲法為重，其余所有的政府官員亦然。比較高法院的釋憲具有比較高的權(quán)威，只因?yàn)樗�在程序上排在比較后。

(7)憲法中列舉了一些權(quán)利出來(lái)，還有一些別的權(quán)利（例如投票權(quán)）是在憲法組成的政府構(gòu)造中暗示存在的�？墒钦�府的憲法結(jié)構(gòu)中并沒(méi)有那一點(diǎn)可以賦予比較高法院權(quán)利，令其僅憑不具文的自然法就足以翻推行政、立法部門的決定。司法復(fù)審在剛提出時(shí)是很大膽的主張，現(xiàn)在則已根深蒂固，我們甚至覺(jué)得除了法官能夠執(zhí)行的權(quán)利之外別無(wú)權(quán)利可言。可是執(zhí)行一項(xiàng)權(quán)利表示執(zhí)行者要詮釋權(quán)利的含義。像自然法這么模糊的概念，詮釋它的責(zé)任不能完全交給政府中非民選的部門——司法機(jī)關(guān)。誰(shuí)來(lái)保護(hù)我們憲法中未明言的權(quán)利？根據(jù)《獨(dú)立宣言》所說(shuō)，應(yīng)該是比較直接“從被治理者手中取得權(quán)力者”，也就是民選官員。

(8)《獨(dú)立宣言》說(shuō)的是“生命、自由、與追求幸�！钡臋�(quán)利。憲法則比較平實(shí)地提及“生命、自由、或財(cái)產(chǎn)”。這兩者之間的差別頗具深意。而且，憲法中并不保障人們絕對(duì)擁有這些權(quán)利。它只是保護(hù)這些權(quán)利不受政府本身的剝奪，而且即使在這一方面也只能保障程序的公平與平等待遇。憲法起草人把范圍縮小是聰明的。如果法官能夠四處橫行，打倒一切只要他們認(rèn)為是妨礙某人追求幸福的事物，民主會(huì)變成什么面目？

(9)這樣說(shuō)并不表示自然法的觀念在釋憲工作上沒(méi)有意義。例如，有許多人不了解，為什么像納粹這一類的人，他們自己并不支持言論自由，而且還想盡辦法剝奪別人的言論自由，憲法竟然也要保障他們的言論自由。這個(gè)道理在于：美國(guó)憲法修正案中保障言論等自由的人權(quán)條款是建立在自然法的理論上，而不是建立于另一種理論——社會(huì)合約上。你享有這些權(quán)利，只因?yàn)槟闶侨耍�不是因�(yàn)槟阋晕淖只蛳笳鞣绞酵�意要支持這些權(quán)利。

(10) 像“正當(dāng)法律程序”這類莊嚴(yán)的詞語(yǔ)需要在文意上加以分析。就連比較堅(jiān)持要狹義解釋憲法的人也會(huì)同意，18世紀(jì)有關(guān)自然法的思想有助于推測(cè)立憲者的“原意”。

(11)有一些熱中人士認(rèn)為憲法第九修正案就是直接把自然法納入憲法的法源。這條修正案表示，憲法中列舉出來(lái)的權(quán)利“不得被詮釋為除此之外人民就不擁有其它的權(quán)利，或者其它的權(quán)利就不受重視�！笨墒牵�這些熱中人士當(dāng)中包括了左右兩派的司法活躍分子——這一點(diǎn)就足以讓兩邊人馬冷卻一下。重點(diǎn)在于：人民確實(shí)擁有非來(lái)自于憲法的權(quán)利——喜歡的話你可以叫它自然權(quán)利——可是法官并沒(méi)有特別的職權(quán)可以執(zhí)行這些權(quán)利。

(12)托馬斯提及自然法與自然權(quán)利時(shí)，可能并沒(méi)有主張法官有特別的職權(quán)。如果是這樣的話，一切就都沒(méi)有問(wèn)題。如果他的野心尚不只于此，那么問(wèn)題就嚴(yán)重了。至于從前自由派的法官自己也可能和托馬斯一樣，曾經(jīng)有非分的念頭，這只不過(guò)是一大諷刺罷了。