Collier: Giving thanks for the rule of law

Staff file photo / The Joel W. Solomon Federal Building and United States Courthouse is seen downtown.
Staff file photo / The Joel W. Solomon Federal Building and United States Courthouse is seen downtown.

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving. We all have our traditions for the holiday - traveling to be with family, meals with friends, football games, movies and other customs. With COVID-19, we must alter many of these and observe Thanksgiving in a manner unlike our past celebrations.

It is good we celebrate in these meaningful, personal ways. But Thanksgiving is also a time to look beyond our individual perspectives and reflect on the larger and collective things for which we can be thankful as Americans. We can worship, or not worship, in whatever manner we choose. We can speak freely without government interference. We can read whatever newspaper, magazine or other media we choose. We can vote for whatever candidates we wish, a right just exercised by more of our fellow citizens than ever before. And we can be thankful to live in a country where the rule of law is secure and supreme. This, in fact, is one of the reasons the United States adopted Thanksgiving as a holiday.

Thanksgiving has its roots in a joint resolution Congress presented to President George Washington in 1789. It called on him "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

President Washington, in accepting the resolution, added in his proclamation his desire the people "may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually "

The proclamation did not focus on thankfulness for personal wealth, individual positions, or other private matters. Rather, he also called on the people to be thankful for, and to ask for, a national government that would be a blessing to all the people, a government of "wise, just and constitutional laws."

With these words President Washington referred to what we call the Rule of Law, the idea of a government that follows laws, not the whims or wishes of individuals. This concept means everyone is equal before the law and the law applies to everyone equally and fairly. It means the government and ordinary citizens are held to the same legal standard.

We all should be thankful that after all these years we still have a country that adheres to the Rule of Law. Because the Rule of Law is not self-perpetuating. It requires those entrusted with positions of authority to not only enforce the law but also obey it. It must be embraced and practiced by ordinary citizens if it is to endure. And it depends on an independent judiciary to protect it.

The federal courts have a unique and crucial role in safeguarding the Rule of Law. The framers of the Constitution gave us three separate, coequal branches of government. They planned a judicial branch of judges with life tenure to keep the judiciary independent from the other two branches. This allows courts to function without undue influence by the partisanship of the legislative and executive branches.

Judges must make impartial decisions based solely on the applicable law and the facts of the particular case or dispute. They must do so irrespective of the identities of parties, public opinion or sentiment of the day. Momentary passion, no matter how strong, must be resisted. Our courts must be open to all people who think they have a dispute capable of being resolved in court. Court cases are also a matter of public record. Judges render public decisions that explain the law and the applicable facts. The public nature of judicial decisions provides accountability and allows citizens to assess the fairness and consistency by the courts to the Rule of Law.

On this Thanksgiving, we can all be thankful for the judiciary's role in preserving the Rule of Law.

Curtis L. Collier, senior U.S. District judge, is chairman of the Eastern District of Tennessee Civics and Outreach Committee.

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