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> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.
I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.
I have a feeling that there is a interpretation bias in favor of corporations over human life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that was taken as valid justification for government intervention, why not just elect a king that promises to be do "good" things?
Can’t say that I follow. What does a king have to do with forming a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> pursuing tort claims Which certainly won't get thrown out over qualified immunity. (And if they win a case against the city, it's coming out of their own pockets!)
At most that will just get it dismissed against some individual plaintiffs. It won't affect their case against the city and any companies such as the engineering firm that was a defendant in this particular lawsuit.
Correct. You may demand clean water from your local government, in return for taxes, but it isn't any sort of basic right. And certainly is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Much like food or medical care: fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people. Otherwise you can demand that work, which imposes on their rights.
It is the government’s responsibility to ensure the people who provide those services are hired and paid. Nobody is demanding anyone to work for free or to be forced to work on something they don’t want.
At some point, we might get there and mechanisms to compel society to work enough so that society doesn’t collapse will be considered some sort of civic duty.
> In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” “We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us,” he wrote. The Ninth Amend…
If you want to know more on how that is done you want to look into "Substantive Due Process". There are a couple approaches that courts might use. One is looking to see if the alleged right is deeply rooted in history and tradition and implicit in the idea of ordered liberty. Another is the so-called "penumbras and emanations" test where they look at existing rights and infer some broader unlisted right that is needed to make the listed rights meaningful.
It's interesting how a lot of newer countries just put the right to water directly in the constitution. South Africa says some stuff about the government having an obligation toward "progressive realization" of the goal [1], whereas Slovenia just straight says water is a right [2]. [1]: https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig... [2]: https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/12...
> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.
> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.
This is a double edged sword right? Allowing judges to interpret the “spirit of the law” more widely would create a different set of absurdities, I think.