What does a supreme court judge look like?

President Bush has made another nomination to the US Supreme Court, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. This time it's White House counsel Harriet Miers, a personal lawyer of Bush for some time who likely shares a lot of his views on many issues. She has never been a judge in her career, and will now (if she is confirmed) serve on 'one of the most influential bodies in US public life'. The Supreme Court is due to consider some of the most widely contentious moral issues in the United States, including abortion, same sex marriage, human cloning and assisted suicide.

In Public Law today, Professor Allan Hutchinson brought up this development to highlight an ongoing discussion of what the image of a judge is versus what he or she is really like. We expect our justices, not least those that sit on the supreme court, to be behind some veil of ignorance in their decisions and interpretations, almost superhuman entities that will always be objective and free of the adulterations that affect the common man.

In reality, they are just like anyone else - humans with their own inherent biases and preferences and political and moral leanings. It is absurd to expect Miers, or anyone else, to shed their garb as social animals who inevitably take sides on any issue and become some kind of detached, colourless supermen that have no other loyalties but to "the law".

Speaking of which, "the law" then is not some stagnant body to be found in books and statutes - it is thoroughly dependant on the actors that exercise and interpret the law - judges, lawyers, members of legislative bodies, prime ministers and presidents. As Hutchinson, an adherent of the Critical Legal Studies movement, says: law is not divorced from politics, law is politics.