Two Countries, Two Courts, Two Cockamamie Conclusions

By now you know we took a couple of good thwacks in the judicial sphere over the last fortnight. Both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and France’s Constitutional Council handed down decisions inimical to Armenian interests. As if that’s not bad enough, both decisions don’t even make sense.

Nevertheless, the court, citing Turkey’s cry-baby reactions to instances of genocide recognition (referring specifically to the most recent French situation) chose to interpret the law as an imposition of foreign policy.

The more recent French decision is easier to address, so let’s dispense with it first. I did not have access to a translation so I have not read the decision itself. But simplicity is elegant, as in simple solutions to seemingly complex mathematical solutions. And here, we have such a situation. France already has a law on the books making denial of the Holocaust illegal. The law found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council would have made any genocide recognized by France illegal to deny. This is a simple, self-evidently parallel pair of concepts. Yet, somehow, the latter law is not, in the esteemed council’s considered opinion, constitutional (the reason given being that it curbs freedom of speech), while the former is. Perhaps this difference arises from Holocaust deniers only using mime, in the grand tradition of Marcel Marceau.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision takes a little more to ditch into the dustbin of legal drivel. The court based its decision on the “precedent” established by three other cases it had ruled on during the last half century. All three were used in the court’s decision to bolster the contention that the California law in question improperly interfered with the federal government’s Constitution-based exclusive prerogative to administer U.S. foreign policy; state and local governments are preempted from doing so. Yet, this law, which enables those cheated out of payments by insurance companies to sue the latter for just compensation, is about a contract, not about foreign policy. The simple mention of a time frame and historical events doesn’t change that fundamental reality.

Nevertheless, the court, citing Turkey’s cry-baby reactions to instances of genocide recognition (referring specifically to the most recent French situation) chose to interpret the law as an imposition of foreign policy. Yet, if the Armenian Genocide had not been mentioned, would the court have found differently? Would it not have found a breach of contract between insurer and insured? Also, if the measure of “establishing foreign policy” is the loud over-reaction of a foreign government, where will the line be drawn? If China decides to whine over civil rights, or over environmental, labor, or other human needs-based laws that impact its export-oriented manufacturing juggernaut, will the court interpret those as the establishment of foreign policy by whatever agency(ies) has(ve) passed them?

Both the French and American cases reek of political influence on the judiciary. The French case is glaring—Turkey raises a hue and cry, the Constitutional Council makes a finding with a result that is inconsistent with the undergirding of an existing law, as explained above. In the American case, the political influence is a bit less obvious. It would probably be a useful exercise to have a law student research the background, thinking, appointer (which president), and judicial voting histories of the judges who ruled on this case. But even without that, the tenuous logic and fact that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew about the decision speak volumes about the arm-twisting that must have occurred behind the scenes.

Shame on the judges in both countries who have sullied the ideal of blind justice! Don’t let them get away with it. Write them letters expressing your indignation and concern over inappropriate political meddling in the judicial process and their succumbing to it.

Garen Yegparian

Garen Yegparian

Asbarez Columnist
Garen Yegparian is a fat, bald guy who has too much to say and do for his own good. So, you know he loves mouthing off weekly about anything he damn well pleases to write about that he can remotely tie in to things Armenian. He's got a checkered past: principal of an Armenian school, project manager on a housing development, ANC-WR Executive Director, AYF Field worker (again on the left coast), Operations Director for a telecom startup, and a City of LA employee most recently (in three different departments so far). Plus, he's got delusions of breaking into electoral politics, meanwhile participating in other aspects of it and making sure to stay in trouble. His is a weekly column that appears originally in Asbarez, but has been republished to the Armenian Weekly for many years.
Garen Yegparian

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2 Comments

  1. Hi:

    I don’t think that we can force people to affirm the genocide by the Turks– who are yet to come to terms and let history reveal the horrible genocide. The best way is to continue to remember this great loss of life happened in the late 18th and 19th centuries. We cannot force people to believe what we want and know- but much of the world does know about the Armenian Genocide and it is known by many. As Armenians and those who also stand firm with this on the true and documented atrocities we can only remember what they (Turks) did to our people. Let history record and let people know. Just like the genocide of Jews, Armenians and many other atrocities in the World. Let us all remember the innocent that died for now good reasons.

  2. Valerie Boyer, the MP from Mr Sarkozy’s party who proposed the bill, said she was “sad but determined” following the council’s ruling, noting that under French law it was a punishable crime to deny the Holocaust.
    “Today under French law there are two types of victims and two types of descendants of victims … Some are protected from revisionist acts and some are not, and I think this is a serious double standard,” Boyer said.

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