Judicial Usurpation and the Constitution: Historical and Contemporary Issues

From Robert P. George of the Heritage Foundation:

Judicial power can be used, and has been used, for both good and ill. However, in a basically just democratic republic, judicial power should never be exercised lawlessly--even for desirable ends. Judges are not legislators. The legitimacy of their decisions, particularly those decisions that displace legislative judgments, depends entirely on the truth of the judicial claim that the court was authorized by law to settle the matter. When this claim is false, a judicial edict is not redeemed by its good consequences, for any such edict constitutes a usurpation of the just authority of the people to govern themselves through the constitutional procedures of deliberative democracy. Decisions in which the courts usurp the authority of the people are not merely incorrect; they are themselves unconstitutional. And they are unjust.