Sotomayor: Judge's job is to apply the law

WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- A judge's job is to apply the law not make new law, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Monday.

Republican after Republican on the panel hammered at some of her comments as evidence she is an activist judge with a liberal agenda and whose empathy for one group or another translates to prejudice against others.

"Throughout my 17 years on the bench, I have witnessed the human consequences of my decisions," Sotomayor said in her opening statement. "Those decisions have been made not to serve the interests of any one litigant, but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice."

Since President Barack Obama announced her as his choice in May to replace Justice David Souter on the bench, Sotomayor said many senators have asked her judicial philosophy.

"It's simple: fidelity to the law," she told the committee. "The task of a judge is not to make the law -- it is to apply the law. "

She said she believed her record in the federal district court and the federal appellate court "reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms ... and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and my Circuit Court. In each case I have heard, I have applied the law to the facts at hand."

Adjudicating is enhanced when arguments and concerns of the parties in the case are understood and acknowledged, she said. Her opinions, she said, set out the law under challenge and why the challenge was accepted or rejected.

"That is how I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our justice system," she said. "My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case."

The hearing opened with a warning from the chairman and a challenge by the committee's top Republican.

"Let no one demean this extraordinary woman ... (or) her understanding of the constitutional duties she's faithfully performed for the last 17 years," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in opening the hearing.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's ranking Republican, bluntly laid out his concerns about Sotomayor's qualifications to be an associate justice, raising questions about whether she would be impartial if confirmed.

He said the U.S. legal system was "at a crossroads" between "judges impartially applying the law ... and judges (pushing) forward their political and social agenda."