Advertisement

High Court Not ‘Law of Land’: Pat Robertson

Share
United Press International

Pat Robertson, head of the influential Christian Broadcasting Network and potential candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, said today that Supreme Court rulings are “not the law of the land.”

Moreover, Robertson, a major leader of the powerful Religious Right faction within the Republican Party, said that while he felt obligated to obey the laws of the United States and all 50 states, “I am not bound by any case or court to which I myself am not a party.”

In an interview in today’s Washington Post, Robertson, a graduate of the Yale Law School who failed the New York bar examination, outlined a theory of constitutional government at odds with much contemporary legal scholarship.

Advertisement

Citing Presidents James Madison and Andrew Jackson, Robertson said the Founding Fathers never intended the Supreme Court to be paramount over either the executive or legislative branches of government.

“A Supreme Court ruling is not the law of the United States,” Robertson told the Post. “The law of the United States is the Constitution, treaties made in accordance with the Constitution and laws duly enacted by Congress and signed by the President. And any of these things I would uphold totally with all my strength, whether I agreed with them or not.”

Earlier this year, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual meeting, Robertson accused the Supreme Court of being a “tyrannical oligarchy.”

Advertisement