開篇這段是BBC一主持人的有關獨立司法對保證公正社會重要性的一段陳述：
...ground rules and then apply them in time of tension. Naturally A healthy society needs polititians who cannot agree the ground rules providing laws to seek the justice and common good, and it needs judges who are at liberty to give rulings free of political bias. Following the General Election the Prime Minister call for healing within this nation, Amen! the mutual commitment of the desciple and Mary suggest the love and friendship are essential componnets of a firm foundation for a healthy and just society, positive mutual regard and wishing the best of each other are crucial for every family, community and region.
然后在對話這兩位英美最高法院的重量級女性大法官（ Baroness Hale and Ruth Bader Ginsburg）時, 主持人拋出的問題是：How has the feel changed for women since they first started studying in law?
下面摘錄了上面音頻前五分半鐘的幾個問題Q (Question) 和兩位大法官的回答 A (Answer)
Q: What was it like to study at Harvad Law School in 1950s?
A: Ginsburg: When I studied in Harvad Law School, there were 500+ law students, 9 of them were women, and in all the Federal judiciary, there was only 1 woman at the Court-of-Appeals level; today in US law schools, women are at least 50% of students, not yet 50% of the judiciary, somewhere at 30+% range and the trend is upward.
A: Lady Hale:
In UK, almost exactly the same, Lady Hale was one of the 6 women students out of 100+ men law school students of that year in Cambridge Law School; but now women are 50+%, they are not half of the bench yet, they are between 30-40%, although in the high court the Supreme Court only 25%, but still a great deal better than it was even 20 years ago.
Q: What in your view, Lady Hale, does it bring to the law the fact that women are inceasingly prominent in it?
A: Hale: The first it does is demostrate to the people who use the courts or need the courts that the courts are for everybody, it also brings equality opportunity for some very able women which means their talents are not wasted. It reflects the values of a legal system which are justice, fairness and equality. And just occasionally having women on their bench means that different disicions are made.
Q: Really? the decision are different becasue the person making that desicion is female rather than male?
A: Hale: -It can be, more when it is appellate decisions so it is collective decision, but it means different perspective and different experience of life is brought to the decision making.
Q: to Ginsburg: Do you agree with this last point?
Ginsburg: I agree with everything Lady Hale just said. I very much like her response, she said if she had inspired a younger generation to believe the ideals of justice, fairness and equality and to think they might put them into practice, she will retire content. I think she put it exactly right.
Q: Let me put a more critical point to both of you, recent view among some the judicial branch is too uppity that it takes too many decisions that are properly political decisions, what do you say to that?
A: Ginsburg: Under our Constitution, the Justices have the last word on the interpretation of the constitution, so I think the court has been careful to steer away from what's called political questions. We don't decide abstract questions, it must be a real life flesh and blood controversy. Unlike Parliament or Congress, the judiciary have no a gender. We are a reactive institution, we respond to the controversies that people bring to us.
而后Hale大法官說：we don't decide political questions, we decide legal questoins...
小編拋個磚，接下來的部分相信大家會自己聽明白。二位大法官的邏輯出色、吐字相當清晰，Enjoy yourself.
BBC 的鏈接在這里：https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000cmyr （需爬墻）
聯(lián)系客服
