规则的层次

【2020-07-03】

看了一些对高院最近几个判决的评论，大多很不着调，包括WSJ的，Neil Gorsuch一直就明确说自己会按法律本义判，无论这个本义是按textualism还是originalism来解读，都完全可能得出保守派不喜欢的结果，这是早就摆明的，为啥现在突然惊诧起来了呢？仅仅因为他是保守派提名的？

评论中的另一个糊涂点是，忘了：在盎格鲁系统中，法官是没有义务为诉讼任何一方构造论点的，援引什么法律，以何种逻辑链条支持自己的主张，都是诉讼方自己的事，法官只是决定这个逻辑链条能否成立，所以，即便同一位法官，面对完全相同的案子，也可能得出截然相反的判决，因为诉讼方可能援引了不同法律，或构造了不同逻辑链，而法官没有义务把他们拉到对他们最有利的路线上来。

还有些评论分不清判决所影响的层次，规则体系是多层次的，一个判决可能在某个低层次上得到你喜欢的结果，同时却在高层次上造成你极不希望看到的结果。

说明这一点的一个经典案例是雪佛龙案（ Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. ），由该案判决所确立的所谓雪佛龙准则（Chevron doctrine）赋予了联邦管制机构极大的自由裁量权，导致管制国家大幅扩张，可是，当初推动这个案子的政治动机，却是里根政府希望放松有关环境保护的管制，即，通过为管制当局谋得更多自由裁量权，可以放松某些管制措施，而且他们确实得到了想要的判决，从一阶结果看，这是保守派想要的，可是他们忘了二阶后果：联邦政府是会换手的，由于该判决树立的恶劣先例，当联邦政府落到自由派手里时，上述自由裁量权就被用来疯狂扩张管制。

花絮：当初代表联邦政府打这场官司的，正是Neil Gorsuch他妈，时任EPA局长Anne Gorsuch Burford

@慕容飞宇gg:有毛病的是 Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision 这句话。除非你混淆 sex 和上面两个概念，这句话没有道理。

@whigzhou: 我也不同意Gorsuch的推理，但他在这一判决中确实表达了他的textualism

把三位法官的意见放到一起看就比较清楚，我的概括：

Gorsuch: textualism万岁，所以我判上诉方输。

Kavanaugh：originalism万岁，所以我判上诉方赢。

Alito: 即便我们接受textualism，Gorsuch的论证也错的离谱。

我赞成Alito。

Gorsuch:

An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

Alito:

Alito wrote, "Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not."[36] Alito further stated that "even if discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity could be squeezed into some arcane understanding of sex discrimination, the context in which Title VII was enacted would tell us that this is not what the statute's terms were understood to mean at that time."

Alito was critical of the majority decision:

There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive ... A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous.

Kavanaugh:

Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and law... They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today's result. Under the Constitution's separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congress's role, not this Court's, to amend Title VII. 【2021-06-18】

Alito在最近的 Nestle v. Doe 一案里又强调了原帖第二点，此案以8-1裁决支持上诉人，Alito是唯一反对者，他在dissenting里说，他完全同意多数方的裁决理由，可是上诉人并未提出这个理由，法院不能替他们动脑筋，而他们提出的那个理由他又不同意