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Justice Ginsburg on Egypt TV: ‘I Would Not Look to the U.S. Constitution’ to Craft Modern Law Document

Feb. 2, 2012 11:44am Billy Hallowell

WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — The Supreme Court’s midwinter break is often used by justices to fly off to sunny vacation spots or European capitals where they address an audience or two on someone else’s tab. But this year, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on a different sort of visit to two North African countries where popular uprisings helped topple longtime leaders. And in one of those countries — Egypt — she raised eyebrows after saying, during a television interview, that she ”would not look to the United States Constitution” as a blueprint for crafting the nation’s new constitution.

Ginsburg wrapped up a State Department-sponsored visit to Egypt on Wednesday with a public seminar at the Cairo University law school. The 78-year-old Ginsburg told students she was inspired by last year’s protests that led to the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

“This is the most wonderful time in which to live and be among the young people who are helping your country and bringing about change during this exceptional transitional period to a real democratic state,” Ginsburg said, according to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. “Think of the people who lived before you and did not have this opportunity because they lived under a dictatorial regime.”

These comments come as many fear the Islamist influence that will come to the region, as the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical groups seize power.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Visits Egypt, Tunisia to Praise Arab Spring

In this image provided by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Cairo, Egypt on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012. Ginsburg is meeting with lawyers, judges, academics and students in two North African countries in which popular uprisings toppled longtime leaders last year. Ginsburg has traveled to Tunisia following a four-day visit to Egypt. Her visits are part of a State Department effort to help the transition to democracy in both countries. (AP Photo/U.S. Embassy Egypt)

The justice, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, and her daughter, Jane, a legal expert on intellectual property, spent four days in Cairo and Alexandria meeting with judges, legal scholars and students. Egypt is set to start rewriting its constitution next month.

“This gives justices, folks who are writing legislation, folks who are working on court regulations a chance to talk to the most senior American justices and members of the judicial branch about their experiences of a lifetime of working on these kinds of issues, about various ways to solve the problems of checks and balances,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “And it is a chance for some of these folks, who have less experience in a democratic system, to learn a little bit more about how we do things.”

Ginsburg, though, inspired controversy following her comments, as she seemed to be urging Egyptians to avoid the U.S. Constitution as a model for crafting their own document. The Huffington Post has more:

…while Ginsburg’s interview, posted on YouTube on Wednesday, lauded the Founding Fathers’ “grand general ideas that become more effective over the course of … more than two sometimes-turbulent centuries,” she also said she “would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” given its original exclusion of women, slaves and Native Americans.

Since World War II several other models have emerged that offer more specific and contemporary guarantees of rights and liberties, she said, pointing to South Africa’s constitution, which she called a “really great piece of work” for its embrace of basic human rights and guarantee of an independent judiciary. She also noted Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms and the European Convention of Human Rights.

“Why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world? I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others,” she said.

Below, see her make these statements in an interview with Al Hayat in Egypt (constitution talk starts around 9:30):

Last week before leaving, Ginsburg met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss the trip.

From Egypt, Ginsburg continued her work with the State Department by heading to Tunisia, where the Arab Spring protest movement had its start. Tunisians recently marked the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world.

This story has been updated.

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Comments (418)

flatdaddio
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:24pm
wow, it’s apparent she has no clue on what’s going on in the world….

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- paintball
  Posted on February 7, 2012 at 1:28am
  Naive old ivory towerist bag. What is she going to say when the muslim brotherhood get their crap stained hands on any govt of her liking?
  
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Deckle
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:24pm
This woman has to be crazy to make those comments and she is on the Supreme Court. Why can’t people understand that the Arab Spring is not about democracy in the Middle East but about spreading Sharia law and the Islamic religion. She will be sorry for those words and for sure she will not be received well in Heaven if at all for those views. Obviously she is not a Bible reading person or she would know better.

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OTBoxer
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:23pm
The way she thinks somehow seems to affect her looks – scaaary!

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pandora
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:19pm
Why are there so many self-hating Jews? You’d think they would see they are committing suicide with their political choices.

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ssbstspd
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:18pm
You would think a Jew would have a lot more common sense on this topic, then this women shows. Unless she knows all about it and supports it. I pick the later. You do not get into high positions of power with a lack of intelligence. If she is, in on this, and I bet she is. Hopefully she gets spoon feed the same medicine she is dishing out.

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ssbstspd
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:17pm
You would think a Jew would have a lot more common sense then this women. Unless she knows all about it and supports it. I pick the later. You do not get into high positions of power with a lack of intelligence. If she is, in on this, and I bet she is. Hopefully she gets spoon feed the same medicine she is dishing out.

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Bruce_Almty
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:16pm
It’s good the Obama bin Lying administration can send our supremes on PR missions to the middle east in support of Islamic Fundamentalism. The article didn’t mention her secret trip to Iran.

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vincijoey49
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:14pm
how did we wind up with this old bag?????????????????

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TexBork
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:09pm
She’s as smart as any other leftist who celebrated the Arab Spring. What’s happened can’t be a surprise. Thinking people knew that radical Islamists would take over and a new Arab-Nation would come about and begin spreading it’s evil around the world using “social justice” and anti-Semitism. Not sure why Ginsburg supports it, but she did. I don’t believe she’s so stupid as to not figure out what was going to come out of it, but she supports it as most democrats and Ron Paul. If Ron Paul had a sane foreign policy, he’d be a great candidate.

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BethInOhio
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 1:09pm
How is she going in and out of Egypt while their holding American citizens essentially hostage? Including Sec La Hood’s own son. Anyone else connecting the dots here?

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welloddyfriggindah
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:59pm
Do you remember Hillary commenting publicly about the need todo away with the Electoral College? These Neo-Coms are all alike. They want the very thing Thomas Jefferson warned about:

“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%.”

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wbaranowski
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:56pm
Was she at the kickball riot/massacre?

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Just in time
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:55pm
Before we had an ally. Now we face the muslim brotherhood. Yea, that’s just great

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W@nd@
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:55pm
if she moved there she would not last long
that much i do knw!

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hogtrashhd
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:54pm
just another self hating jew… man we have a bunch of nuts in this society and i think the nuttiest are at the top rung of society… the more they have the more they hate themselves are into self destruction. i’m sure there’s something psychotic about it all..

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shogun459
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:53pm
Guess she missed the Egyptian Nazi Party rally video.
It was only on u-tube and the Internet and Al Jazira, AP,
oh hell it was everywhere but the MSM and she still didn’t see it.
Is Justice blind and self distructive?

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jwmarietta
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:47pm
yeah they can take advice from the senior justice, who the hell would anyone want a gov’t like ours is now. our gov’t is complete **** now. not America anymore. We have been taken over by these freaks and need to get fird

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azjoannie
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:46pm
Isn’t she Jewish?

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shogun459
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:45pm
Those people are Not interested in how we do things.
The mission Goals of these organizations are about spreading ISLAM.

PS Just a reminder Judge, we have a Republic, a Representative Democracy.
Plain ole’ Democracy has everyone vote on every issue as it comes up.
Before you say that’s a good idea,
What would have happened to the American Japanese if Everyone had voted the day after Pearl Harbor.
Answer: Nobody would have lived to see a camp.
Government is supposed to crawl so mistakes can be stopped.

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Phoneguy
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:39pm
What an old bitty, I say leave her over there, then watch her cry another song!

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GrayPanther
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:39pm
Ruth Bader Ginsberg is the worst Supreme Court justice on the bench. Her opinions, her leftist opinions, always “back into” a unnoticed gray area in the U S Constitution. She represents what is the most dangerous aspect of the Supreme Court. Unless convicted of subversive acts against America, she cannot be relieved of her position.

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- shogun459
  Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:49pm
  GreyPanther,
  The only ones’ This Admin. would charge with Treason are,
  Vets, NRA, Ron Paul & Single Issue supporters like Pro-Life or Birthers and who else was on that list the State Troopers were using?
  
  Report this comment
mpefster50
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:39pm
Thank God The Supremes don’t have the final say, although they act as if they do.

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notreally
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:34pm
Thus verifying, again, that liberal “brains” are wired differently than normal people:
-10/28/10 NBC news: University of California at Davis and Harvard University find “Liberal Gene” as partial answer as to why liberals think the way.

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mapgirl10
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:34pm
Only goes to show that our Republic has had those in it to destroy us for a long, long time!

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Diego Roswell
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:31pm
Hideous self hating Jew. This woman has done more damage to our nation than a thousand Hitlers.

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- shogun459
  Posted on February 2, 2012 at 12:50pm
  Remember one of Hitler’s inner Circle,
  Was a Jew.
  
  Report this comment

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