Breyer Calls High Court 'Boundary Patrol'

NEW YORK - The job of a justice on the nation's highest court is to patrol the boundaries of American society, not to decide what kind of society it should have, Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer said Tuesday.

People are suspicious of what the court does and think it intrudes into what they do, Breyer said.

"Democracy has boundaries, or rails," he said during a luncheon at New York Law School. "We are the boundary patrol."

The 68-year-old justice noted that the word democracy is not found in the Constitution. But the concept, he said, is there.

"When you understand this document has democracy as its heart, then you have an approach to answer specific questions," Breyer said.

Do you agree? What do you think is the main function of the Supreme Court ?