无法想象特朗普当选总统
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, No Fan of Donald Trump, Critiques Latest Term
无法想象特朗普当选总统
WASHINGTON — Unless they have a book to sell, Supreme Court justices rarely give interviews. Even then, they diligently avoid political topics. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes a different approach.
华盛顿——除非是自己出了书要做宣传，最高法院的大法官们几乎从不接受采访。即便是那种情况下，他们也会竭力避开政治话题。但大法官鲁思·巴德尔·金斯伯格(Ruth Bader Ginsburg)采取了一种不同的方式。
These days, she is making no secret of what she thinks of a certain presidential candidate.
近来，她丝毫不掩饰自己对某位总统候选人的看法。
“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
“如果唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)当选总统，我无法想象这个地方会变成什么样子，无法想象这个国家会是什么样，”她说。“对国家来说，可能是四年的时间。对最高法院来说，将是——我甚至不愿意去想这个问题。”
It reminded her of something her husband, Martin D. Ginsburg, a prominent tax lawyer who died in 2010, would have said.
这让她想起了亡夫马丁·D·金斯伯格(Martin D. Ginsburg)可能会说的话。后者是一名优秀的税务律师，于2010年去世。
“'Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,'” Ginsburg said, smiling ruefully.
“‘现在是时候移居新西兰了，’金斯伯格苦笑着说。”
In an interview in her chambers Friday, Ginsburg took stock of a tumultuous term and chastised the Senate for refusing to act on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
上周五在她的法官室接受采访时，金斯伯格盘点了当前这个混乱的法庭年度，并责备参议院拒绝就贝拉克·奥巴马总统选定的最高法院大法官提名人采取行动。
Her colleagues have said nothing in public about the presidential campaign or about Obama’s stalled nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court. But Ginsburg was characteristically forthright, offering an unequivocal endorsement of Garland.
对于这届总统竞选或奥巴马提名梅里克·B·加兰德(Merrick B. Garland)为最高院大法官的行动陷入停滞，金斯伯格的同事不曾有任何公开表态。但她一贯性格直率，明确对加兰德的提名表示支持。
“I think he is about as well qualified as any nominee to this court,” she said. “Super bright and very nice, very easy to deal with. And super prepared. He would be a great colleague.”
“我觉得他会与本法院任何一位提名人一样合格，”她说。“无比聪明，非常和善，容易相处，准备也很充分。他会是一位很不错的同事。”
Asked if the Senate had an obligation to assess Garland’s qualifications, her answer was immediate.
在被问及参议院是否有义务评估加兰德的资格时，她立刻做出了回答。
“That’s their job,” she said. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.”
“那是他们的职责，”她说。“宪法中没有任何一条指明总统在任期的最后一年就不再是总统。”
The court has been short-handed since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, and Ginsburg said it will probably remain that way through most or all of its next term, which starts in October. Even in “the best case,” in which Garland was confirmed in the lame-duck session of Congress after the presidential election on Nov. 8, she said, he will have missed most of the term’s arguments and so could not vote in those cases.
自大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚(Antonin Scalia)于今年2月去世之后，最高法院的职位一直存在空缺。金斯伯格表示，在于10月开启的下一个法庭年度的大部分、乃至所有时间内，这种情况可能会一直延续下去。她表示，即便是在“最好的情况下”，即加兰德在11月8日总统竞选结束后被跛脚鸭国会确认为大法官人选，他也会错过这一年度的大部分辩论，因而不能就那些案件投票。
Ginsburg, 83, said she would not leave her job “as long as I can do it full steam.” But she assessed what is at stake in the presidential election with the precision of an actuary, saying that Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer are no longer young.
现年83岁的金斯伯格表示，“只要我还能全力工作”，就不会退休。不过，她精算师般地掂量着总统大选中的风险，表示大法官安东尼·M·肯尼迪(Anthony M. Kennedy)和史蒂芬·G·布雷耶(Stephen G. Breyer)也都不年轻了。
“Kennedy is about to turn 80,” she said. “Breyer is going to turn 78.”
“肯尼迪马上就80岁了，”她说。“布雷耶很快就78岁了。”
For the time being and under the circumstances, she said, the Supreme Court is doing what it can. She praised Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
她说在眼下这种情况下，最高法院是在尽其所能做好该做的工作。她赞扬了首席大法官小约翰·G·罗伯茨(John G. Roberts Jr.)。
“He had a hard job,” Justice Ginsburg said. “I think he did it quite well.”
“他的工作非常艰巨，”金斯伯格说。“我觉得他做得相当不错。”
It was a credit to the eight-member court that it deadlocked only four times, she said, given the ideological divide between its liberal and conservative wings, both with four members.
她表示，考虑到人数各占一半的自由派和保守派之间的意识形态分歧，目前有八名成员的最高法院在投票上只出现过四次僵局，的确值得赞扬。
One of the 4-4 ties, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, averted what would have been a severe blow to public unions had Scalia participated. “This court couldn’t have done better than it did,” Ginsburg said of the deadlock.
其中一次平局，也就是对“弗里德里希斯诉加州教师工会”案(Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association)进行的投票，假如有斯卡利亚参加，将会对公共部门工会组织造成沉重打击，而平局避免了那种结果。“法院不可能比当时做得更好，”金斯伯格这样评价那一次的平局。
When the case was argued in January, the majority seemed prepared to overrule a 1977 precedent that allowed public unions to charge nonmembers fees to pay for collective bargaining.
今年1月就这桩案件展开讨论时，最高法院的大多数大法官似乎准备推翻1977年的判例。该判例允许公共部门的工会向非成员收费，以便支付集体谈判的费用。
A second deadlock, in United States v. Texas, left in place a nationwide injunction blocking Obama’s plan to spare more than 4 million unauthorized immigrants from deportation and allow them to work. That was unfortunate, Ginsburg said, but it could have been worse.
第二次平局出现在“联邦政府诉德克萨斯州”案(United States v. Texas)中，结果导致一项阻止奥巴马移民计划的全国禁制令。该计划本可以让400万未经授权的移民免于被驱逐出境，允许他们在美工作。金斯伯格说，这个结果令人遗憾，但情况原本还会更糟。
“Think what would have happened had Justice Scalia remained with us,” she said. Instead of a single sentence announcing the tie, she suggested, a five-justice majority would have issued a precedent-setting decision dealing a lasting setback to Obama and the immigrants he had tried to protect.
“想想如果斯卡利亚还在世，会出现什么情况，”她说。她认为，那样的话，不会是宣布票数拉平的单一判决，而是会有五名大法官以多数票胜出，做出一个先例性的判决，对奥巴马和他努力保护的移民形成长期的阻碍。
Ginsburg noted that the case was in an early stage and could return to the Supreme Court. “By the time it gets back here, there will be nine justices,” she said.
金斯伯格指出，这个案件处在早期阶段，还有可能返回最高法院审理。“等它再回来的时候，就是九名大法官了，”她说。
She also assessed whether the court might have considered a narrow ruling rejecting the suit, brought by Texas and 25 other states, on the ground that they had not suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave them standing to sue. Some of the chief justice’s writings suggested that he might have found the argument attractive.
她也评估了最高法院是否本可以考虑以一个差距比较小的裁决驳回起初由德州及其他25个州提起的诉讼，理由是它们并没有受到直接而确凿的损害，于是缺乏起诉的理由。首席大法官写下的一些文字显示，他原本可能会觉得这个论点有说服力。
“That would have been hard for me,” Ginsburg said, “because I’ve been less rigid than some of my colleagues on questions of standing. There was a good argument to be made, but I would not have bought that argument because of the damage it could do” in other cases.
“如果是那样，会难以说服我，”金斯伯格说，“因为在质疑理由方面我不像一些同事那么严格。那会是个不错的论点，但我不会把它提出来，因为可能会”对其他案件“造成损害”。
The big cases the court did decide, on abortion and affirmative action, were triumphs, Ginsburg said. Both turned on Kennedy’s vote. “I think he comes out as the great hero of this term,” Ginsburg said.
金斯伯格称，最高法院在堕胎和平权措施方面的大案件做出的裁决属于巨大的胜利。两项都有赖于肯尼迪的投票。“我觉得他成为了这个法庭年度的大英雄，”金斯伯格说。
Asked if there were cases she would like to see the court overturn before she leaves it, she named one.
在被问到是否有她希望能在自己退休之前推翻的案例时，她提到了一个。
“It won’t happen,” she said. “It would be an impossible dream. But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled.”
“不会发生，”她说。“那将是一个不可能实现的梦。不过我的确想看到“联合公民”案(Citizens United)的裁决被推翻。”
She mulled whether the court could revisit its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. She said she did not see how that could be done.
她仔细考虑了法院是否会重新审核2013年就“谢尔比县诉霍尔德”案(Shelby County v. Holder)做出的判决。该判决实际上废除了《选举权法》(Voting Rights Act)的一个关键部分。她表示，看不出还能就这个案件做些什么。
The court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, establishing an individual right to own guns, may be another matter, she said.
最高法院2008年就“哥伦比亚区特区诉赫勒”案(District of Columbia v. Heller)做出的裁决确立了个人持有枪支的权利。金斯伯格称，这桩案子是另一回事。
“I thought Heller was a very bad decision,” she said, adding that a chance to reconsider it could arise whenever the court considers a challenge to a gun control law.
“我认为赫勒案是个非常糟糕的裁决，”金斯伯格说。她还表示，每次最高法院想对枪支管制法律提出挑战，都有可能出现重新考虑该案的机会。
Should Garland or another Democratic appointee join the court, Ginsburg will find herself in a new position, and the thought seemed to please her.
如果加兰德或其他民主党提名人加入最高法院大法官的行列，金斯伯格将会处在一个新的环境中，想到这一点，她似乎颇为开心。
“It means that I’ll be among five more often than among four,” she said.
“这意味着我会更经常处在五票的行列里，而非四票，”她说。
