If (Not Necessary) Necessary Not

Ever succinct, The Economist sums up the debate in two sentences:

Some judges, when elevated to the Supreme Court, have taken it as licence to act as philosopher-kings, laying down the kind of enlightened laws that the oafs in Congress ought to have passed but did not. Others have sought to undo the work of the philosopher-kings by overturning every ruling not solidly supported by the words of the constitution, as they were understood by the Founding Fathers.

And goes on to say:

Mr Roberts appears to believe that the first group, known as “activist judges”, are usurping powers that belong to elected legislators. He sympathises more with the second group, the “originalists”, but fears that too rigid an application of their principles would be hugely disruptive...

The new chief justice offers instead a cautious, incremental approach. Rather than issuing sweeping commandments from the bench, judges should decide cases on the narrowest possible grounds. “If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, in my view it is necessary not to decide more,” he told an audience of law students in May.