“卡根号”航母即将启航

THIS may not have occurred to you, but a Supreme Court judge is like an aircraft-carrier. How? Just count the ways.

您可能从来没有想过吧，最高法院的大法官会像一艘航空母舰。难道这风马牛不相及的两者会有什么相像之处？那我们就来数一数吧。

First: longevity. One of the first carriers to arrive off Afghanistan after 9/11 was the USS Enterprise, a carrier that first saw service in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. When it retires in 2013 it will have given 51 years of service. An investment that continues to pay off after half a century is a wonderful thing. The justices of the Supreme Court are also investments for the long term. This week saw the retirement, still sound at 90, of Justice John Paul Stevens, who got his commission from Gerald Ford and has served on the court for 35 years.

首先，他们都具有长寿的特点。9.11后率先抵达阿富汗的航空母舰包括“企业号”，而早在1962年的古巴导弹危机期间这艘航母就首次进入了人们的眼帘。这艘航母预定2013年退役，届时他在美国海军的服役期就达到了51年。一项投资在半个世纪后仍然能够收到回报，这真是一个奇迹。最高法院的大法官们也同样是一项长效资产。本周退休的大法官约翰•保罗•史蒂文斯（John Paul Stevens），年龄已满90但身体仍然硬朗，他是福特总统任命的大法官，在这个岗位上一干就是35年。

Second: raw power. Once confirmed by the Senate, justices may sit for life and rule as they please, regardless of the expectations of the president who nominated them or the promises they gave the Senate in confirmation hearings. A long-serving justice can make a deeper mark on America than a president. In 24 years on the bench Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice, did as much for racial equality in America as Lyndon Johnson, who chose him. True, a justice is boxed in by the other eight judges on the bench, the words of the constitution and the rules of jurisprudence. But that leaves ample latitude. “Do what you think is right and let the law catch up,” Marshall said.

其次，他们都具备强大的力量。  一旦得到参议院的批准，大法官就可以一辈子坐在这一位置上，按照自己的意愿做出裁决。对此，任命他们的总统无可奈何，他们在参议院确认听证会上的允诺也不起约束作用。一个长期担任这一职务的大法官对美国社会产生的深刻影响要超过一位美国总统。瑟古德•马歇尔（Thurgood Marshall）是美国的第一位黑人大法官，林登•约翰逊（Lyndon Johnson）总统挑选他为最高法院的大法官。他在这一位置上坐了24年，对美国种族平等的贡献毫不逊于约翰逊总统。诚然，一个大法官还受制于最高法院的其他8名大法官，还受制于宪法条文和法理规则。但是，大法官仍然拥有大量的自由裁量空间。马歇尔就说过：“你认为是对的就去做，法律文件可以后补”。

Last: like an aircraft-carrier, a justice goes to war. Behind all the civilities the Supreme Court is indeed engaged in a high-stakes war between its conservative majority and liberal minority. The fiction Barack Obama adopted when nominating Elena Kagan to replace Mr Stevens is that he chose his own solicitor-general and this former dean of the Harvard Law School because she happens to possess the wisdom of Solomon, not because of her politics. But everybody knows he needs a liberal to stop the court from moving further to the right than it already has under John Roberts, the present chief justice, a man more stealth-bomber than aircraft-carrier, whose professions of judicial modesty during his own confirmation hearings in 2005 gave little inkling of the controversial decisions over which he has since presided. It is a safe bet that Mr Stevens would not be retiring at all but for his desire to let a Democratic president pick his successor.

大法官与航母相似的最后一点是，他们都要投入战争。在最高法院彬彬有礼的表象下确实存在着一场多数的保守派与少数的自由派之间高风险的战争。埃琳娜•卡根（Elena Kagan）是美国司法部副部长，奥巴马政府的总检察长，曾担任过哈佛大学法学院院长。据说奥巴马总统钦点她接替史蒂文斯出任大法官并非由于她的政治观点，而是看中她具有所罗门王的智慧，堪当此任。约翰•罗伯茨（John Roberts）是现任首席大法官，与其说他像航母不如说更像一架隐形轰炸机。在他的主持下，最高法院日渐保守化。他在2005年的参院确认听证会上公开声称自己持司法谦抑的理念，无法想象他上任之后竟会主持做出这么多饶有争议的裁决。奥巴马总统需要一个自由派的大法官以阻止最高法院的进一步右转，这一点人人届知。可以很有把握地说，如果不是为了让一个民主党总统挑选自己的继任者的话，斯蒂文斯先生是绝对不会退休的。

At her confirmation hearings in the Senate this week some of Ms Kagan’s Republican interrogators wryly acknowledged the truth of the matter. You are a liberal person, I am a conservative person, but elections have consequences and that’s just America, said the relaxed Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. Jeff Sessions of Alabama got more steamed up. Ms Kagan had barely practised law; her college thesis seemed to bemoan the decline of socialism in New York; when serving in the Clinton White House she had tried to restrict gun rights; at Harvard she had treated military recruiters in “a second-class way”. Having clerked for Marshall, was she also going to do as she pleased and wait for the law to catch up? Was she, gasp, a “legal progressive”?

本周参议院的卡根女士任职确认听证会上一些共和党的质询者们虽然嘴咧得老高，但也不得不承认眼前的事实。来自南卡罗来纳州的林赛•格雷汉姆（Lindsey Graham）参议员语气轻松地说，你是一个自由派人士，而我是一个持保守观点的人，但大法官的任用事关重大，（法官要抛开党派之见）是美国的特色。而来自亚拉巴马州的参议员杰夫•赛辛斯 (Jeff Sessions) 的质问火药味则浓了很多。卡根女士没有做过法官;她的大学毕业论文似乎对纽约社会主义因素的下降感到不满；在克林顿当政时她在白宫任职，当时她曾试图强化枪支的管制;在哈佛大学任职期间她称进入军队服役为购买了“二等车票”。作为马歇尔大法官的前书记官，她是否也会按自己的想法去裁判，让法律文件去后补？她是否持“司法解释要与时俱进”（legal progressive）的观念？说到这，赛辛斯参议员不禁倒吸了一口冷气。

If Ms Kagan was unsettled by this fusillade she did not betray it. She did not in fact betray very much at all other than a serene confidence and a puckish wit. Despite having complained in 1995 about the “vapidity” of the confirmation process, she chose vapidity over valour once she was in the hot seat herself, evading hard questions about her judicial philosophy, and abortion and gun rights, on the ground that it would not be “appropriate” to “grade” past cases in case they came up to the court again. As for being a “legal progressive”, she told Mr Sessions “I honestly don’t know what that label means.”

如果卡根女士面对这种连珠炮似的诘问有所不安的话，她也没有丝毫显露。她表现的平静而自信，不时还以一些机智而俏皮的话语。尽管她在1995年时曾指责确认程序“枯燥乏味”，但现在坐在这个“热板凳”上接受审查的对象是她自己，她此时宁愿这个过程枯燥一点也不愿面对这种急风骤雨似的局面。当被问及她的司法理念，她对坠胎与枪支管制的态度时，她说，用过去的言行来评判她成为大法官后对这类问题的观点并不恰当，从而巧妙地避开了正面回答这些难以回答的问题。至于说她持“司法解释要与时俱进”的观点，她对赛辛斯说：“虽然人们给我戴上了这样的标签，但我真的不知道这个标签上的句子是什么意思。”

Barring some unforeseen calamity the cautious nominee will shortly be confirmed and USS Kagan will sail forth to do battle. Her arrival in Mr Stevens’s place will not much change but should at least preserve the existing imbalance of power on the court. If she turns out to be the liberal of Mr Sessions’s fears and Mr Obama’s hopes, she will follow her predecessor’s example and make common cause with a like-minded minority (Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg) against the conservative majority composed of Mr Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing voter, is conservative on most issues.

除非有不可预见的灾难性事件出现，这位谨慎的大法官候补人将在短期内得到参议院的批准，卡根号航母即将启航出征。她接替史蒂文斯的位置虽然不会使最高法院的力量均势发生重大变化，但至少可以保持这种平衡。如果她如赛辛斯参议员所担心的那样成了一个奉行自由主义的大法官（这当然正是奥巴马总统的期望），她将会追随前任的榜样，与志同道合的少数派（索尼亚•索托马约尔、斯蒂芬•布雷耶和露丝•巴德•金斯伯格）协力对抗由罗伯茨、安东宁•斯卡利亚（Antonin Scalia），塞缪尔•阿利托（Samuel Alito）和克拉伦斯•托马斯（Clarence Thomas）组成的多数派。安东尼•肯尼迪（Anthony Kennedy）是最高法院内立场摇摆的中间派，但在大多数诉讼判决的投票表决中他投了保守派的票。

For better or worse, there will be no truce
无论结局如何，战火不会停息

To judge by the fast-growing proportion of voters who decline to identify with either party, Americans are repelled by the bitter partisanship that has gripped their political institutions. They may regret the fact that their supreme tribunal has succumbed to the same affliction instead of standing above politics.

现在美国对共和与民主两党都不与认同的选民迅速增加，据此可以判断，美国人对充斥其政治机构内你死我活的党派之争非常反感。他们也许会对国家的最高仲裁机构不能超然于政治之外，同样也陷入这种纷争之中而感到遗憾。

In 2007 Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker wrote a book (“The Nine”) arguing that from 1992 to 2005 the cautious instincts of swing justices such as Lewis Powell and Sandra Day O’Connor produced rulings that reflected public opinion. But this, said Mr Toobin, was about to be challenged by a powerful conservative rebellion that gathered strength with the appointment in 1991 of Mr Thomas, who believes that years of rulings by liberal justices, including Miranda on criminal warnings and Roe on abortion, went beyond the constitution and should be reversed. 更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

2007年，《纽约客》杂志的杰弗里•图宾(Jeffrey Toobin)出版了一本书，书名叫《九人(美国最高法院风云)》。书中叙述了从1992年至2005年间，像刘易斯•鲍威尔（Lewis Powell）和桑德拉•戴•奥康纳（Sandra Day O’Connor ）这样一些立场不定的大法官出于谨慎，凭直觉使他们的裁决反映了民意。图宾在书中说：这些裁决受到了强大的保守势力的挑战，原本处于相对弱势的保守势力在1991年由于托马斯就任联邦大法官而增强了力量。托马斯认为多年来自由派法官做出的裁决，包括对嫌犯警告用语的“米兰达规则”与"罗诉韦德案"中关于堕胎的裁决，都超越了宪法的规定，应该予以纠正。

The past year’s performance of the Roberts court has confirmed the liberals’ fear. Exhibit one was the Citizens United ruling, which threatens to unravel the whole tangle of campaign-finance law and which Mr Obama calls “a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics”. So the court is not only divided within itself but also sailing towards a new collision with the executive branch. Some will deplore this new sign that America’s dysfunctional polity is being crushed in the vice of faction. Others will say it is part of the necessary, institutionalised and never-ending quarrel that is the genius of the American system. Either way, the struggle continues.

在罗伯茨控制下联邦最高法院过去一年的所作所为证实了自由派人士的担忧。最主要的证据就是“公民联盟”（Citizens United）案的裁决。这项裁决威胁到解开竞选资金法这团乱麻的努力，奥巴马总统称之为“为美国政治生活中特别利益金大行其道开了绿灯”。因此，联邦最高法院不仅内部处于分裂状态，而且与行政当局出现了新的碰撞。有些人会对这种新的迹象感到痛惜，指责美国政体在派系之争的恶习内耗下功能逐渐失调。而其他人则会反驳说，制度化和无休止的争吵正是美国体制的高明之处，是完全必要的。无论谁是谁非，斗争仍将持续。