"The question that needs to be answered is how you view the role of unelected judges in a representative democracy," Hatch said. "I want to know more about how you get or how you intend to get to a conclusion, while some appear to only want to know what the conclusion will be like on issues such as abortion."

"The people who framed our Constitution," Roberts responded, "were jealous of their freedom and liberty, and they would not have sat around and said, 'Let's take all the hard issues and give them over to the judges.' That would have been the furthest thing from their mind. Now judges have to decide hard questions — but they have to decide those questions according to the rule of law, not their own social preferences, not their policy views, not their personal preferences."

Roberts said his personal experience has been that careful judges are always vigilant in adhering to their proper function and not going into the legislative area.

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