Kansas Supreme Court, Court of Appeals chiefs honor Eisenhower’s vision for Law Day
Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Rosen and Kansas Court of Appeals Chief Judge Sarah Warner celebrate Law Day initiated by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Rosen lavished praise Friday on President Dwight Eisenhower’s insistence on recognizing the rule of law in shielding individual liberties, championing justice and forbidding anyone from operating above the reach of legal authority.
It was Eisenhower — the farm boy from Abilene, the World War II military hero and the 34th president — who designated May 1, 1958, as Law Day. In 1961, Congress added an exclamation point to Eisenhower’s directive by formally establishing a national observance of appreciation for ideals of equality and justice under law and the rights and freedoms established under the Constitution.
Rosen led a ceremony in the lobby of the Kansas Judicial Center to mark the event. He signed an administrative order embracing the imperative that Americans lean into the law to resolve disputes, exercise rights and make justice accessible with integrity, excellence, innovation and fairness.
The legal system has relied on strong government institutions anchored to the rule of law and a population willing to defend judicial independence, he said.
“Law Day reminds us that freedom does not sustain itself,” said Rosen, who was appointed a Shawnee County District Court judge in 1993 and joined the state Supreme Court in 2005.
Rosen said the Founding Fathers issued a Declaration of Independence that was tested in violent revolution, produced a U.S. Constitution to serve as the framework for government bounded by respect for the law, and crafted a U.S. Bill of Rights consisting of 10 amendments to the Constitution designed to protect individual liberties and limit federal authority.
In Kansas, he said, the judicial branch evolved to include district or trial courts, the intermediate Kansas Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court.
“The law gives us structure and liberty,” Rosen said. “It creates order without oppression, resolves disputes without violence and ensures that power answers to principle. The rule of law means that no person is above the law, and no person is beneath its protection.”
He said Eisenhower understood a timeless truth: “Constitutional rights mean little if leaders lack the resolve to uphold them.”
Rosen was joined at the ceremony by Sara Warner, chief of the state Court of Appeals. She was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2019 and began a four-year term as chief of that appellate court in January.
On Friday morning, Warner was in Johnson County to reaffirm her annual oath to bear allegiance the state and federal constitutions. The oath also committed her to neither delay nor deny the rights of any person, to not foster or promote any fraudulent, groundless or unjust suit, to not give consent to falsehoods in court and to discharge duties of the judiciary to the best of her abilities.
The system in Kansas relies on dedicated lawyers, judges, clerks, paralegals, court reporters and court service officers to make justice reality rather than rhetoric, she said.
“Everyone who plays a part in this system has devoted our lives to the cause of justice, to the cause of fairness and equity, and to the rule of law. We take it very seriously,” she said.