impartially. i read this to mean that you would do it without consideration of external circumstances, external considerations. policy considerations or otherwise. now, this relates to some interaction that you and i had when you came before this committee for your confirmation to the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit where you now sit. in connection with that hearing, i submitted some questions to the record in which i asked you whether to what extent the constitution protects rights that are not imin-num rated in the constitution itself and if so, to specify. and you cited a number of cases. you suggested that the ninth amendment was something was a
protect rights that we think are important today? thank you, senator. the supreme court now very clearly has determined that in order to interpret provisions of the constitution we look to the time of the founding, and we ascertain based on what the original public meaning of the words of the constitution were at the time. sometimes that yields a particular answer, other times you may have to look to practices historically from that time. but that is that would be the way in which you would go about interpreting the 9th amendment. could it also be that it leaves this to be decided at the discretion of the supreme court itself? in other words, not based on any historical precedent but based
and impartially. i read this to mean that you do it without consideration of external circumstances, external considerations. policy considerations or otherwise. now this relates to some interaction that you and i had when you came before this committee for your confirmation to the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit where you now sit. in connection with that hearing, i submitted some questions to the record in which i asked you whether to what extent the constitution protects rights that are not innumerated in the constitution itself. and if so, to specify what those rights are. you cited griswald vs. connecticut, roe vs. wade and a handful of others. you also suggested the ninth
suggests that there are some rights that are not enumerated. right. its very existence and language suggests that, opens up other questions how those are to be resolved, has led to considerable debate among scholars and jurists alike as to whether, what extent, in what way this is enforceable, the rights are enforceable by the courts. but how would we go about deciding that? how would jurists go about deciding this question appropriately? in other words, would it be more appropriate to say we will ascertain the existence of rights protected by the 9th amendment based on contemporaneous understanding of the ratification of the 9th amendment or more open ended to
rights that are not enumerated. right. its very existence and very language suggests that, which opens up other questions as to how those are to be resolved. it s led to considerable debate among scholars and jurists alike as to whether this is enforceable shlgs those rights are enforceable by the courts. but how would we go about deciding that? how would how would jurists go about deciding this question appropriately? in other words, would it be more would it be more appropriate to say, we will ascertain the existence of rights protected by the ninth amendment based on contemporaneous understanding at the time of the ratification of the ninth amendment, or would it be more open-ended? to protect rights that we think are important today?