Supreme Court Judges and this whole left/right wing business

[Pump that iron!]

Now, I'm not sure how important left or right wing leaning is in regards to appointing Supreme Court (of Canada, U.S., etc) Judges but it is obviously prevalent in the United States and I'm not sure about Canada although I think it is less prevalent.

This whole notion of choosing SCJ (supreme court judges) based on their political leanings (left wing or right wing) concerns me because isn't their main purpose to interpret the law? I guess logically, law flows from the elected representatives and senators so one might say "whats the big deal?" And I'll be honest, I'm not sure what IS the big deal; I just know, even if I cannot articulate WHY, that this whole left wing/right wing business concerns me.

I thought that interpretation of the law is supposed to be as neutral (perhaps not the right word?) or as OBJECTIVE as possible. It is obvious that 100% objectivity cannot be obtained because judges always have their own biases and experiences to draw on. However, when it comes to things like interpreting a country's Constitution, should a judge's political views/leanings really make a huge difference?

I hope this generates some discussion.

[EDC]

The left/right thing isn't a big concern up here in regards to choosing members of the supreme court. To begin with we have a multiparty system in which the centrist party is usually in power. Second regionalism is usually the overarching political question even in regards to the supreme court. Lastly our supreme court doesn't have the same power as America's.

Anyway. I think an important thing to remember is that foundational documents like constitutions tend to be kept relativly vague so that later generations can apply them to unforseen circumstances. So there would be a lot of room for interpretation. It isn't like your founding fathers went into great detail concerning "a well regulated militia" or mine with "peace, order and good government".

[frankenstein]

Yes, their job is to interpret the constitution. There never really are any 'radical' judges on the US Supreme Court. Their decisions may tend to be slightly more liberal or conservative, but you can't always predict who will vote for what. There are often surprise votes on some issues. Eminent domain for example had the 'conservative' judges voting against the side of big govt and big business coercing together, while the more 'liberal' judges were on the side of big business. People usually associate conservatives with big business, but it certainly isn't always so.