The Biblical Qualifications of a Jurist

"You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

Leviticus 19:15

There is a reason that the famous statue of the Greek goddess Themis is wearing a blindfold. Justice requires that judgment not be biased by a judge being in favor of the poor or the rich. We often confuse justice with charity. The biblical view of justice is set forth in the Torah as spelled out in the verse above. Partiality is not to be taken into account when deciding what is just. President Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayor because she has compassion for the poor and downtrodden fly in the face of the biblical standard for a justice. Charity and compassion are the realm of the individual's responsibility. This stands in stark contract to the demands of the law. When one chooses a judge because of their ethnicity or background to favor certain groups over others, you have a jurist who is prohibited by the commandment of Leviticus.

Justice is supposed to be blind. When we lose that principle, society suffers from the polarizing prejudices of a judiciary where judges push their own political agenda at the expense of the rule of law.