Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at BYU

One of the advantages of working next to the BYU campus is that I can occasionally attend the forums and devotionals that they hold every week. I enjoyed attending them while I was a student at BYU.

One of the most memorable devotionals was when President Benson spoke to a completely packed Marriot Center crowd.

Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court spoke to a large BYU crowd on Tuesday, October 23rd. The crowd was about 3 times larger than the crowed that listened to Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, who spoke two weeks before.

Judge Roberts started with a joke about why he doesn't tell 'lawyer jokes' any more. The lawyers don't think the jokes are funny, and no one else thinks they are jokes.

Judge Roberts proceeded to give an exceptional dissertation on the United States Constitution.

He pointed that out that France has had 10 constitutions in the same time that we have had our original. He joked that French bookstores don't sell their constitutions because they don't carry periodicals.

The US Constitution is a bill of rights that sets us apart from other nations in that it sets up rights by its creators: 'we the people.'

He said that our constitution has been put down by critics because it it 'all sail and no anchor.'

Our constitution sets up the balance of powers with the legislative, executive, and judicial and separate and equally powerful branches of government. Roberts stated that the founders of the constitution intentionally made it difficult to make laws. They made it even more difficult to amend the constitution. Laws could be created but it required a lot of support. Amending the constitution required a 2/3 majority of both houses and a ¾ of all state legislatures to ratify.

Roberts described difference between the US government and Great Britain's. The government in the UK is not divided. The Parliament elects the Prime Minister and the equivalent of the supreme court from among themselves. He said that they have recently made progress in dividing the governmental powers. This was the very reason that we fought to leave them and now, over 200 years later, they are following our leave.

The framers of the constitution recognized the need to have a powerful executive to counter balance the congress and the senate. He said he thought that they made the president more powerful than they needed to because they new that the first president would be Washington. They had just separated themselves from the King and yet the set up a very powerful president as the executive officer.

He pointed out that the 1st building to be build in Washington DC was the White House. The 2nd was the US Capital. However, the Supreme Court didn't get a building until 1944.

The grand words in the constitutions of other countries are just empty promises unless the courts are powerful enough to uphold the rights guaranteed to the citizens. The constitution of the old Soviet Union had a lot of beautiful and flowery words, but they failed to create a court system to guarantee individual rights. Brutal dictators did not fear their constitution, nor their courts.

Judge Roberts reiterated that Judges must not abuse their independence to write law into their decisions. They must interpret the law set by the legislative branch, not take that power unto themselves.

Judges must show the lonely courage of a patriot in their decisions.

Our country only has 1 Supreme Court unlike other countries that have have multiple overlapping supreme courts of their countries. You can imagine the confusion and court shopping that this creates.

There have been 11,000 proposed amendments to the US Constitution, yet only 27 have been ratified.

Judge Roberts praised former BYU president and Supreme Court Solicitor General Rex Lee. He described arguing a case before the Supreme Court and against Rex Lee. Roberts went on to lose in a 9-0 decision in Lee's favor. Roberts' client asked him why the lost 9-0, and Roberts responded because there were only 9 justices.

Chief Justice Roberts went on to praise Rex Lee as a modern example of the founders of the constitution. It made me wonder if President Lee had not died of cancer, if he would not be on the Supreme Court now.