we are not satisfied. we need zero cases. the general rate of homicides in the columbia is 33 per every 100,000 people. in this specific case, it is between two or three between every 100,000 members of these groups. but we want zero cases. i want to repeat, we have two dozen trade unionists with individual protections provided by the government. this production has been very effective. no one with this production has been killed. under the umbrella of the international labor organization, we have agreed that employers, workers, and

government to give more resources to the justice and to the administration. . . today, we have 195. today, we have 175 people in jail because they have been convicted or they have been indicted for killings of trade unionists.

therefore, we have advanced protection, we had advanced economic impunity. we have dismantled one threat. today, the cases are -- they have to sources. deorbit -- the other source corresponds to isolated cases. we have made promises, but we have said that we need to do much more. in the case of labor rules, we have advanced a lot. last year, which improved to very important laws. -- we improved two very important laws. we have restricted corporations. with introduced a ban where they

can no longer be labeled intermediaries. if they want to work, they have to pay for social benefits, and they cannot act as labor intermediaries. i signed a new lot improved -- approved by congress. columbia --colombia calls it a statute of limitations. against those criminals blamed -- trade unionists and human rights. for 17 years, columbia -- colombia was on a blacklist for labor.

my country has been taking away of that list. a few weeks ago, the international labor organization has said that colombia is a country making progress. we have said that we have many problems to solve. we have advanced a lot. in the economic crisis, we have opposed the idea of many colombians, many of the social benefits that were lost -- have created for workers. in colombia, however we defend the right of the workers in the name of eternity, we don't want to make all colombians informants. we want the state to formalize the economy, to provide more high-quality jobs with syphilis

it -- with the affiliation of the community system. imposing the government obligation to put money to guarantee in come at the moment of the retirement for those in the formal economy who have not expectations to get a pension. we're trying to do our best in columbia -- colombia. and we need your help. in the case of the united states and in europe, it is a new source to protect the rights of the workers. it is a new source to protect the rights of the people. therefore, we except that we need your. -- your help.

one is the approval of the free trade agreement. >> the final question will be from her in the back. >> i am a former woodrow wilson center scholar. i have a question about internally displaced people in colombia. colombia has the largest number of idps or internally displaced persons in the world. you have a man who has taken on the job, but is a big job. i wish to talk a little bit more to us about your plans for expanding the scope of what he is doing and you are doing with this very large population. >> yes. we have two problems to protect internal be displaced people, and the other to protect reasserted people coming from

the -- reasserted people from the terrorist groups. -- reinserted people. for many people, this is a very negative incentives. -- incentive. we registered people that were 156,000 people who were in accordance with the declaration. they were displaced in between 1957 and 1987. therefore, our policy regarding internally displaced people has invited people displaced, even

in the middle of the last century, to come to the administration office and to request for their benefits. it is generosity, but at the same time, it is a big problem for our country. with internally displaced people, we have advanced a lot in education, health care, subsidies for them to freely flee from pain, for them to guarantee that children in school attendance. if i were asked by you what is the main problem, your main concern about internally displaced people, i want to confess. it is social housing. ladies and gentlemen, we have

made progress, but we need many problems. my government is the first to a knowledge that we need to figure out how to overcome these problems. the international red cross has helped us a lot to tend to internally displaced people. there are three sources of displacement. these resources are places in rural areas in the middle of the jungle. we have said to the international red cross, please talk to our military. we have said to our military, please contact the international

red cross to inform them in advance about our military operations against north for terrorists -- narco terrorists. we want to increase confidence in the communities living in these areas, especially in the indigenous communities. for them not to displace as a consequence of our military operations. in some areas of the country, we have succeeded in creating what i call liaisons' of confidence. there between the military and the community. one example is the case of santa marta. [unintelligible] in these indigenous communities,

they said to me, mr. president, two days ago we received a visit from people in uniform that were guerrillas. we received people in the same uniform that were paramilitaries. we received people in uniform that said they were soldiers. we cannot trust. that day, we created, in these friendly discussions, the liaison of confidence. we appointed a colonel in the army as the permanent liaison of confidence. now we want to spread the positive experieance --

experience to other areas of teh country to minimize the number of displaced people. >> we're sorry we cannot take any more questions because of the president's schedule. i asked the remaining year seats while the president departs. -- i ask that you remain in your seats while the president departs. [applause] thank you, mr. president. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> up next on c-span, a review of the recently concluded supreme court term. president obama and the

commander of u.s. forces in iraq and discuss the military withdrawal from iraqi cities, and the newest member of the senate, al franken, and his opponent norm coleman. on c-span tomorrow, the heritage foundation previews president obama's trip to russia next week and looks at the state of u.s.- russia relations. that is live at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. and later, we will bring you the president appearing at a town hall meeting in annandale, virginia. you can watch our live coverage beginning at 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> this holiday weekend on "book tv." discover an unfamiliar sight of our nation's first president ezra live from george washington's mount vernon

estate. join our 3 our conversation, sunday on "in depth. it is part of our three day holiday weekend starting friday morning. >> now, a review of the supreme court's recently concluded term hosted by the washington legal foundation. the invited dick thornburgh, walter dellinger, and other legal experts to comment on the supreme court's rulings over the last year. this is an hour-and-a-half. >> good morning, and welcome to the washington legal foundation's annual supreme court briefing. we're coming to you live from

our center for free enterprise. we welcome all the that of joined us on line and all of you who have joined us here today in person as well. the foundation has been around for 32 years. we are a public-interest law and policy center that has branched out into being an organization which publishes in seven formats, communicates to the public and the press and a number of different venues, and puts on programs such as these and other web seminars. there were 24 briefs in the supreme court this term. 17, lost 5, -- won 7, lost 5. we're pleased to have with us today as our moderator as almost always do for this program, the hon. dick thornburgh and was counsel -- dick?

>> welcome once again to our annual gabfest on the supreme court term as the washington legal foundation will obviously focus on cases affecting the free enterprise system. there are others who will tell -- there are others we will dwell upon. we'll also talk about the nomination to judge sotomayor. the mythical bartender philosopher who created mr. dulie once observed that the supreme court follows the election returns. we know that is not true. we did have an election last year, and it will certainly affect the court. most notably, president obama is appointing authority for vacancies over the next four

years, and we can imagine a quite different scenario for appointments is john mccain would have been the president. then again, perhaps justice souter might not have resigned. but there are a lot of things there. the court completed its october 2008 term, and we recruited the usual all-star lineup to share its views on the activities. to assess the number of consequences for five to four decisions, read some tea leaves about future directions accord may take, and to make some sense out of this year's varied crop of decisions. i will introduce each of our participants in the order in which they will speak, and then turn them loose. tom serves on the faculty at stanford and harvard, and this

responsible for the widely popular blog keeping track of the court. to my right, the acting solicitor general of the department of justice. he frequently appears before the court in his capacity as a private lawyer now. finally on my far right, he spent five years as assistant to the solicitor general. it was a former law clerk to justice thomas. you invite each of our speakers to share 20 minutes or so of their comments on court decisions, and see if they have any exchange in and among themselves. then we will be led open it up to your questions and have you out of here by 10:00. with that introduction, i will turn to our first speaker, tom?

>> it is always a tremendous pleasure when i get invited to come and talk at the washington legal foundation. it is impossible to overstate the significance of the foundation and its role at the court institutionally as a body that is committed to a single principle of free enterprise. the level of participation in cases that the court is tremendous. more than a dozen merits cases. it is really almost unparalleled. they are focused on cases that have won consistent principle that goes through a lot of the supreme court's docket. many of the folks watching the program on the web and through c-span, it is tremendous to get

to talk to you in this form. i have three things to talk about. the term "by the numbers." what it tells us about the court. the second is what i think is going on. what do we see about what the supreme court is up to and what i recall -- and what i call the conservative judicial purchase an actuarial ism. a jurisprudence that pays attention to how the justices are. i want to talk about a couple of cases that might otherwise seem like dole points of procedure rather than substantive law. preemption and things that my colleagues will talk about. the more dull sounding stuff of what it is that you have put enough detail in your complaint, or whether the burden of proof shifts and a case, and what that tells us about the supreme

court's jurisprudence. the supreme court for many years seemed to have a going out of business' sign up. the court pose a number of cases that was argued and decided was at 714 terms ago. that led to 68, then 67. it went from 82 to 72 to 71. the dockets seemed to be dwindling. in this term, the number turned around. they decided 75 cases out of argument and 79 cases overall. that is a lot less than 1986,. all of the justices that all of the sir petitions himself. the court had decided in 1986 hundred 56 cases. -- in 1986, 156 cases.

the court has a much stronger footing for a stop to it than any time in the last five or 10 years. the court has already granted some 45 cases for next term. it has already filled up its argument calendar for october, november, december, and january. they will hold afternoon arguments a few times in october. it sounds kind of silly, like does filling the document really matter? it does in terms of being able to have a steady calendar and getting cases in the door that the justices want to resolve. the court reversed a 75% of the time. that puts in context the number that gets -- judge sotomayor and reversed a 75% of the time. whether it is a very significant circuit conflict, it sees a real

problem in the ruling below. 1/5 of the dog it was from the ninth circuit. they do a good job of providing the justices plenty to do. seven of the courts of appeals had a 100% reversal rate. that is pretty remarkable. that includes the somewhat relatively conservative fourth circuit court of appeals. the eleventh circuit had 100% affirmance rate. 23 cases were decided 5-for this term. that is incredibly high as a historical matter. the court to terms ago had 33% of its cases decided. it was an incredibly better term between the left and right on the supreme court. that number has kicked back up again. the supreme court is more

divided now than at any time in its modern history. the average number of to cents per case this term broke the to barriers so that in any given case, you expected to be at least 72 for the first time since as long as i've been keeping statistics. you're much less likely to see brought anonymity across the court. sometimes people confuse the goal of bringing greater coherence to the supreme court pose a decision making with the idea that they once every case to be -- what the chief justice tries to do is to make sure that the court is deciding cases clearly so that you know what the answer is. it might be 5-4100 to% of the time -- five-four, 100% of the time. three judges and other and three judges and number, justice x

joins part two-day -- they are down materially. there was only one plurality decision this term down from 34 in the last several terms. while the lines between the justices are going not -- and growing more start, they are able to decide the cases and you know what it is a you are allowed to do and what it is that you are not allowed to do. 23 cases -- the second highest number in the last 15 years. of the 23 cases, 16 of them were decided along the classic ideological lines. justice kennedy decides what the law means. he is the judge that is in the center. there are four justices to his left and four to his right. 11 joined the right, and five

toward the left. it is a two to one ratio. i think it is fair to say he joined the right. the cases that will have a really lasting significance is probably the caperton case about whether you have a case decided against you if one side bought one of the judges by contributing $3 million to their electoral campaign. whatever you think of the decision and the jurisprudence there of whether there is really a constitutional right here, the court system should be handling themselves -- and is regarded as a case that will not have a huge effect on litigation and the courts. there really will make a real difference in a lot of different areas of the law. i was a that the conservative members of this court had a

tremendously successful term, and justice kennedy was willing to go along with them the number that i gave, 70% of the five- four cases -- what is tremendous with justice kennedy dif -- finds himself evenly divided as he did last term, or have tilted towards the more conservative side. justice kennedy was in the majority in 18 of the 235-4 cases. -- 23 5-4 cases. he was a majority 92% of the cases, significantly higher than anybody else. the next highest was justice scalia at 85%. if you're really want to know where the supreme court is that

in any given case is justice kennedy that can be your marker. in terms of what justice was the most interesting, it was justice scalia and justice thomas who remain absolutely fascinating. they are the most principled of the justices. i happen to disagree with the principles a lot, but that is neither here nor there. when you can see is that when they do believe in principle of law, they go where it takes them whether it is favoring criminal defendants a lot, but they stick to their principles. justice scalia and thomas r. much more likely to vote with the members on the left whereas on the left ever joined any of the more conservative members of the court to create 5-4 majority. justice thomas is by far the most in -- by far the most interesting justice. they take precedence and thrown overboard because he thinks it

is completely wrong and introduces a lot of new ideas into the law. and he will have a tremendous influence over time, maybe he won't. he does have a lot of very independent ideas. the last few statistics i will mention are when justices agreed to gather a lot. the chief justice and justice aledo agreed the most this term. on the left, justice stevens and justice souter has left the court ended at midnight last night that is the term "by the numbers. the statistics that i find most interesting. directionally, let me make a couple of points and turn to the cases i wanted a highlight. i mentioned the jurisprudence of actuarial as some -- actuari alism.