Strict Sense of The Term
Strict construction requires a judge to apply the text only as it is spoken. Once the court has a clear meaning of the text, no further investigation is required. Judges should avoid drawing inferences from a statute or constitution and focus only on the text itself. Justice Hugo Black argued that the First Amendment's injunction, that Congress shall make no law (against certain civil rights), should be construed strictly: no law, thought Black, admits no exceptions. Ironically, Black's legacy is as a judicial activist. However, "strict construction" is not a synonym for textualism or originalism, and many adherents of the latter two philosophies are thus misidentified as "strict constructionists."
The term is often contrasted with the phrase "judicial activism," used to describe judges who seek to enact legislation through court rulings, although the two terms are not actually opposites.
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