Wisc. Chief Justice visits campus

5/4/2010
By Patrick Lilja
Staff Writer

Wisconsin State Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson was in Superior to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Superior on Fri., April 30 in the Yellowjacket Union. About 20 people attended; some were students, but many were not.  

Saturday, May 1 was Law Day in the United States, and this year’s theme for the day was “Law in the 21st Century;” the theme touched on the growing globalization of the world’s economies, the Internet’s impact and much more.

As such, Abrahamson stressed that everyone in the US is under the same laws and that no one is above it.

“We are governed by the same rules, whether we are the President or a housekeeper,” Abrahamson said, also stating the need for everyone to be judged fairly and that enforcement should be fair and equitable. 

She also spent some time talking about judicial independence and clarifying the roles of judges and courts in our society – that judges enforce laws, not make them.

“The judge will be interpreting and applying the law,” she clarified, adding that “a judge only has to care about the facts and the law. That is judicial independence.”

Following the Chief Justice speaking, a panel of students and local lawyers presented a panel of select court cases.

The students who attended were excited to have the Chief Justice here; senior Caleb Nicholson was one of them. 

“[I’m] quite pleased to have someone of this caliber here to talk about judicial independence,” he said following the program.

Chief Justice Abrahamson was appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by then-Gov. Patrick Lucey in 1976. She was the only woman to serve on the court at the time. She won election to the Court in 1979, and was re-elected in 1989, 1999 and 2009, becoming Chief Justice in 1996.