From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Sat Sep 14 2002 - 10:40:04 PDT
Hi Paul,
> I recall learning in High School that the Supreme Court did NOT have the
>right to question laws and 'declare' them unconstitutional.
The Founding Fathers were very smart men. They didn't trust anybody :-)
The people were not trusted to directly elect their President, for
example. But I disgress...
The Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branches all fulfill unique but
interlocking roles in governing the people they serve. The three
branches were formed to establish a network of checks and balances
because it was a good way to ensure the country didn't slide into
despotism (at least on the whole). The chances of one branch being
corrupted in some way is pretty good, but the chances of all three at the
same time and with the same motivations? Not very good. Even some of
the slimey things trying to be pushed through now are being defeated.
The simple way to look at this is...
The Legislature is responsible for making the laws, the Exectutive branch
is responsible for enforcing them, and the Judicial is responsible for
interpretation of the laws approved by the two. There are many checks
and cross checks in this system, many of which we all know (for example,
the President as head of the Executive branch has the ability to veto
legislation, the Congress of the Legistlative branch has the ability to
cut funding to Executive programs, and the Judicial has the ability to
judge either of the two parties, etc.
The sole purpose of the Supreme Court, which was set up by the
Constitution, is to decide if a law upheld by lower courts is
Constitutional. No court beneath it is capable of rendering that
decision, although sometimes by defacto they do (i.e. if a lower court
rejects the law and the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case, it stands
as a precedent until another challenge comes up). I can not recall ever
learning that the SC managed to secure this authority later on, since if
it did... I don't understand what its function was supposed to be before
that. Plus, the Founding Fathers were quite concerned about the other
two branches screwing around with the Constitution so it makes sense they
would have bestowed this power onto the Judicial branch.
Hehe... class dismissed :-)
Seriously, hope the above was useful. Our system of government isn't
perfect, but it sure is solid compared to most!
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 13:21:21 PDT