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Comment by johnnyo | Hacker News Reader

The problem with your idea is that the court is sometimes weighing/balancing competing rights and responsibilities from separate parts of the Constitution.

For example, when is a church’s hiring practice an equal protection violation? Or is it an exercise of freedom of religion?

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That gives me an idea for some big time controversy. Pass a law that says your religion can override specific laws such as hiring discrimination. In exchange for those freedoms the government now gets to enforce your religion's rules on your followers if you're not doing it. Or at least the government can fine/sue your organization for failure to enforce the rules.

That's such a bad idea but it would cause so much juicy drama. I would take a year of that over 2020.

Edit: fixed misspelling of rules, had rupes

> That's such a bad idea

Let's say the hiring practice of a church is unlawful, it would not be constitutional law that was violated. Now the Church might sue and say their freedom to excercise their faith is being violated. If a judge rules in good faith against the Church and a higher court reverses that decision the judge should not be found any wrongdoing. I did not mean incorrect rulings should be punished, I meant malicious ignorance and violation of the constitition should be punished.

With your example, if it is found that the law was crafted with intentional ignorance of freedom of religion, then the lawmakers that introduced it should face punishment, if the judge also intentionally ignored this right (and this can be proven) not because of their understanding of the law but because their intentional ignorance of the right, that judge should be punished. And a law enforcer that intentionally violates citizens' rights should also face punishment.

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