Are Catholic judges held to the same standards as Catholic legislators?

Amy Welborn sums up a blogosphere debate.  Is a Catholic judge bound by his faith to rule against abortion rights or same-sex unions or what have you?

I say no.  Are you surprised?  It has to do with the prescribed roles of legislators and judges in the United States.

Simply put, legislators’ role is to make laws.  Judges’ role is to interpret the laws given them by the legislature.

It is voluntary cooperation with evil to use one’s position as a legislator to vote for an evil law. 

It is not, generally, voluntary cooperation with evil to write of an evil law, "It is compatible with the constitution," if that is the correct finding.  Nor is it, generally, voluntary cooperation with evil to write of an evil action, "It is not against the law as it is written," if that is the correct finding.  These are mere findings of fact.  It is possible for an articulate judge to craft an opinion that drips with disgust and disdain for a law and points out all the things that are evil about it,while simultaneously upholding it as constitutional.

There may be a few very specific situations in which to rule correctly (from a legal standpoint) would constitute voluntary cooperation with evil.   What kind of situation might this be?  I suppose that obvious tyranny on the part of the whole government might be one.  It would have to be a situation in which the judge, playing by the rules laid out for him, is incapable of any action that is not an inherently evil one.    But in such specific situations, the judge (who is a free person, remember) has an option to recuse himself, perhaps in protest. 

We foresee that most judges will need to recuse themselves for one reason or another at times; this does not preclude their competence to judge the majority of cases that come before them.

A note on legislators.  Some people believe that a legislator is bound to vote according to the likely majority vote of the people she represents.   By this argument, the legislator has to vote for an evil law if that is what the people want her to do, and is absolved from the evil because an authority higher than herself has commissioned it.  This is faulty moral reasoning; no person may commit an evil act at the behest of his employer.  No authority is legitimate at the moment it commands the commission of an evil act or cooperation with one. 

Besides, American law has no tradition that binds a legislator in this way.  The legislator’s  mandate is to represent the people in all the acts of legislating, which includes not only the casting of votes but the careful consideration of how to vote.   

On the other hand, the judiciary is bound tightly by a restrictive definition of its role, which is interpretation and reconciliation of existing law and existing precident.  A judge does not really act, he analyzes and extracts truth.  This cannot be an evil act, even if the truth extracted is unpleasant or if others use it to commit evil acts.