Why the Oath Doesn’t Entail Originalist Adjudication
Posted: 11 Jun 2020
Date Written: May 16, 2020
Abstract
The "Oath Argument" purports to show that judges should be originalists. This short paper shows that nothing about the Oath to uphold the Constitution requires that judges decide Constitutional questions as originalists, even if we grant that the Constitution's meaning is determined by its original public meaning.
Keywords: originalism, oaths, Thayerism, constitutional interpretation, constitutional theory
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Encarnacion, Erik and Krishnamurthi, Guha, Why the Oath Doesn’t Entail Originalist Adjudication (May 16, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3602609
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