of off the cuff analysis and overview of four distinct topics: internationalization of law US, Canadian, and Israeli judicial interpretation, Borks unifying theme is that a New Class is using the judiciary to impose their normative vision of a community as metaphor, Exploration of Canada and Israel was enlightening and coverage of the US covers themes covered well before, Implicit in Borks vision is a very limited role for the judiciary with deference accorded to policy makers except for a narrow and welldefined bundle of rights, I enjoyed the data on recent history in Canada, Europe, and Israel, The book isn't good for much else, There might be something worthwhile deep down, very deep down, but the book was just not well thought through or presented, It just comes off as a bit of a rant, In general, courts have been activist in opposing majority views on such matters as sexual practices, secularism versus religion, rights of speech and expression and feminism, This judicial activism appears to impinge on the legitimate domains of the executive and legislative branches of government and constitutes the judicialization of politics and morals, According to Bork, a number of courts tend to act in this activist fashion, As well, international tribunals appear to exceed their jurisdiction, posing a threat to national sovereignty just as the national courts threaten democratic government, This activism is more than a threat Bork argues that both sovereignty and selfgovernment have already been seriously damaged, Coercing Virtue attempts to account for the phenomenon of why so may courts in democratic nations behave in an imperialistic manner and why the results almost always appear to advance the liberal political and cultural agenda.
not nearly as powerful or heavy as his two previous books This is not as indepth as Slouching Towards Gomorrah, but as a lawyer, I found the things he discusses quite disturbing as he intended.
He focuses on the manner in which judicial activismjudges who disregard the intend of the authors of a constitution or statute in favor of the judges' own preferencesundermines democracy because there is no recourse against their decisions.
In effect, nine people on the Supreme Court can overrule all the elected representatives in the country, And often have. It is possible to say with hindsight that in some cases they reached a good result, but I still believe they reached it in the wrong wayin a way that is bad for the country.
Robert Heron Bork was an American legal scholar who advocated the judicial philosophy of originalism, Bork served as a Yale Law School professor, Solicitor General, Acting Attorney General, and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, In, he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, but the Senate rejected his nomination, Bork had success as an antitrust scholar, where his once idiosyncratic view that antitrust law should focus on maximizing consumer welfare has come to dominate American legal thinking on the subject.
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