On Sun, 17 Oct 2004Mason A. Clark <masoncNOT@THISix.netcom.comQQQ>
wrote:
News today reported a law was rejected
by a judge because, among other things,
it was "politically motivated."
This strikes me as weird in the extreme.
Am I alone?
Depends on specific context, the fact-specific answer to the question,
Was adoption of the law at issue "politically
motivated" in a manner in compliance with compared
with some sort of pre-determined ("politically
motivated") decision de facto made in advance in
violation of whatever are the law-required procedures?
Suppose, f'r'instance, that the law in issue was a rule adopted by a
governmental agency, which, although vested by the agency's enabling
legislation to enact rules addressed to whatever is the subject matter
in contention, if that the agency follows whatever is the
legislatively-prescribed procedure in so doing (e.g., giving notice
and a reasonable opportunity to interested partes to be heard in
support or in opposition, creating an evidentiary record of the
resulting hearings, and, in its deliberative process thereafter,
actually taking a "hard look" at This-or-That perhaps competing list
of considerations if that sort of standard is legislatively required,
etc.), in a manner provably pre-determined by "political motivat[ion]"
-- i.e., that the rule was adopted in a way that makes factually
unsupportable the agency's claim that it gave the required advance
notice and actually gave (rather than just pretended to give)
consideration to the interested parties' submissions and really did
take (rather than just having given lip service to have taken) the
"hard look" (or whatever else may have been the legislatively-required
standard for adoptation of the rule at issue).
Of course, in real life, if/when a judge enjoins or entirely rules
invalid a governmental agency's rule on the grounds that that law's
adoption/implemention was "politically motivated" it may also be fair
to ask whether that judge is himself or herself "politically
motivated" also in a way perhaps functionally equivalent to the ruling
s/he is making about the agency; and the answer to that question might
be found by comparing the judge's decision at issue to those of other
judges in like cases (maybe there is even demonstrable personal pique
and maybe even outright ill-will towards a fellow judge an element of
judicial motivation?) and, perhaps, even the judge's own political
background and political/business related connections.
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