Other Heritage Sites | Blog | Bookstore | About Us | Contact Us 

Advanced Search
Heritage home Issues Where We Stand Experts Press and Media Support Heritage
 

Rule of Law 

The Rule of Law is the foundation for constitutional government and a flourishing civil society.  

The American justice system suffers from a prevailing judicial philosophy that treats judging as politics by another name; a dangerous trend to “over-criminalize”—that is, to criminalize conduct that is socially and economically beneficial or is better regulated by the civil justice system or administrative means; and a civil litigation system run amok by frivolous lawsuits and outrageous damage rewards.

To address these three major issues, we seek to reform the “imperial judiciary,” which usurps power that belongs to the political branches of government and wrongly interferes with Heritage’s vision for America. To do this, we must restore the courts to their constitutional role, which is to protect individual liberty, property rights, and free enterprise, and to enforce the constitutional limits on government. We also seek to reverse the dangerous trend to criminalize almost everything. To do this, we must remind legislators of the proper lines between federal and state control, and we must restore the traditional protections afforded the accused by the criminal justice system. Finally we seek to reform America’s civil justice system by restoring it to its traditional role, which is to fairly enforce contracts and property rights, justly mediate disputes involving claims of injury or damage, and follow the rules involving private disputes established by the legislature.


 

 
Related Heritage Research
Experts
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Senior Legal Fellow, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Senior Legal Research Fellow, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies
Contact An Expert
MEDIA INFORMATION LINE:
Phone: 202.675.1761
Fax: 202.544.6979


Debugging Information
ColdFusion Server Enterprise 7,0,2,142559
Template /about/lfa/RuleofLaw.cfm
Time Stamp 13-May-08 07:53 PM
Locale English (US)
User Agent CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
Remote IP 10.10.41.254
Host Name 10.10.41.254


Execution Time

Total Time Avg Time Count Template
15 ms 15 ms 1 top level D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\RuleofLaw.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\metadata\init-cache.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\security\session-user-approvals.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\site-application.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\core-application-meat.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\handle-head-request.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\handle-request-timeout.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\session-first-global.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\session-first-site.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\startup\site-application-meat.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\build-user-struct.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\cp-setencoding.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\commonspot\utilities\validation\render-info.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\About\Application.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\LFAfooter.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\rightColumnLFA.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\custom-application.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\customcf\RD06\box-standard-media-contacts.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\customcf\searchform-header-greyblue.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\templates\basepageheader980.cfm
0 ms 0 ms 1 D:\websites\heritage.org\ui\redesign\nav\LFANav.cfm
16 ms  STARTUP, PARSING, COMPILING, LOADING, & SHUTDOWN
31 ms  TOTAL EXECUTION TIME
red = over 250 ms average execution time


Scope Variables

Application Variables:
activesubsites=1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,61,62,63,64,66,68,69,70,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144
anonitemsecurity=Struct (8)
anonrights=Struct (7)
anonsubsiteperms=Struct (135)
anonsubsitesecurity=Struct (135)
applicationname=site2
cachedimages=Struct (62)
cacheinfo=Struct (14743)
cachevalid=1
confidentiality=Array (5)
controlinstance_toplevel=Struct (2)
cs=Struct (11)
cs_element_cache=Struct (0)
defaultconfidentiality=5
defaultstructs=Struct (6)
docsdump=Complex type
dodump=Complex type
dolog=Complex type
getid=Struct (4)
gettaxonomyannotlookup=Complex type
imagegallerylists=Struct (0)
languages=Struct (11)
lastknownchange=Struct (19)
lastupdate=Struct (15)
lookuptaxonomyannot=Complex type
masterrendersequence=39648
metadatacache=Struct (0)
nextcheck=Struct (1)
serverclockcheck=2008-05-13 17:06:17
servervalidationcode=1029RTN7H3C5C265DONPR3CT2
site=Struct (47)
styleids=Struct (206)
stylenames=Struct (206)
subsitecache=Struct (135)
templaterenderoptions=Struct (69)
translations=Struct (4)
CGI Variables:
AUTH_PASSWORD=
AUTH_TYPE=
AUTH_USER=
CERT_COOKIE=
CERT_FLAGS=
CERT_ISSUER=
CERT_KEYSIZE=
CERT_SECRETKEYSIZE=
CERT_SERIALNUMBER=
CERT_SERVER_ISSUER=
CERT_SERVER_SUBJECT=
CERT_SUBJECT=
CF_TEMPLATE_PATH=D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\RuleofLaw.cfm
CONTENT_LENGTH=
CONTENT_TYPE=
CONTEXT_PATH=
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
HTTPS=off
HTTPS_KEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SECRETKEYSIZE=
HTTPS_SERVER_ISSUER=
HTTPS_SERVER_SUBJECT=
HTTP_ACCEPT=Accept: application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us,en;q=0.5
HTTP_CONNECTION=close
HTTP_COOKIE=
HTTP_HOST=author.heritage.org
HTTP_REFERER=
HTTP_USER_AGENT=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html)
PATH_INFO=/about/lfa/RuleofLaw.cfm
PATH_TRANSLATED=D:\websites\heritage.org\About\LFA\RuleofLaw.cfm
QUERY_STRING=
REMOTE_ADDR=10.10.41.254
REMOTE_HOST=10.10.41.254
REMOTE_USER=
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
SCRIPT_NAME=/about/lfa/RuleofLaw.cfm
SERVER_NAME=author.heritage.org
SERVER_PORT=80
SERVER_PORT_SECURE=0
SERVER_PROTOCOL=HTTP/1.1
SERVER_SOFTWARE=Microsoft-IIS/6.0
WEB_SERVER_API=
Cookie Variables:
CFID=7779473
CFTOKEN=37044883
Request Parameters:
applockname=CS_App_Site2_1
authormode=0
authorok=1
basehref=/
browser=Struct (9)
constants=Struct (185)
cp=Struct (110)
customerinfo=Struct (25)
debugmode=0
disablehideformenus=0
editmode=0
formattedtimestamp=2008-05-13 19:53:31
ignoreauthuser=0
initialsiteid=2
initialsubsiteid=5
itemsecurity=Struct (8)
jswarnmessage=
lockid=0
openelements=
pagedata=
previewon=1
renderelementdata=Struct (0)
renderstate=Struct (2)
requestedversiontimestamp=
sequenceid=209172
sessionlockname=Session_1_7779473_37044883
sessionstring=1_7779473_37044883
site=Struct (47)
siteid=2
styleids=Struct (206)
stylenames=Struct (206)
subsite=Struct (56)
subsitecache=Struct (135)
subsiteid=5
subsiteperms=Struct (135)
subsiterights=Struct (14)
subsitesecurity=Struct (2)
subsitesecuritycache=Struct (135)
timestamp={ts '2008-05-13 19:53:31'}
udslockname=CS_Customer_commonspot-users
uipath=/ui/
updatingschemas=0
user=Struct (18)
usersdatasource=commonspot-users
wanterrorsrethrown=0
warnmessage=
Server Variables:
COLDFUSION=Struct (8)
COMMONSPOT=Struct (2)
OS=Struct (5)
Session Variables:
authormode=0
browser=Struct (9)
cfid=7779473
cftoken=37044883
currentpageid=0
debugmode=0
debugmode_control=0
editmode=0
hasusertempfiles=0
lastupdate=Struct (6)
lastuserupdate=1210722811406
lockid=0
logintime=
pagedata=
pendingapprovalpages=
pendingapprovals=
previewon=1
requestedversiontimestamp=
sessionid=SITE2_7779473_37044883
urltoken=CFID=7779473&CFTOKEN=37044883
usagelist=
user=Struct (18)
Debug Rendering Time: 16 ms