The American National Government is very unique. There are many aspects and a lot of thought and effort that goes into the government. Each and every day the government officials are working and dealing with issues within our nation. For example, the judicial branch of government is constantly looking at laws and propositions to determine and make sure they can be classified as constitutional. Judges and justices are trying and reviewing court cases daily, deciding who is in the right and who is in the wrong. With that, there are many different roles and powers held by the judicial branch is very unique and has many layers within it. So, to get started I would like to tell you about the judicial branch and why I believe that it, with the Supreme …show more content…
Court, is the most powerful branch of all. To begin, the judiciary is just a fancy term for the judicial branch of government.
The judicial branch is one of the three branches of the United States government. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word “judiciary” means “a system of courts of law” and “the judges of these courts” (“Judiciary,” Def. 1). “The judicial system of the United States promotes the equal right of participation by allowing a single individual who has been harmed by a law to challenge its constitutionality.” (Text, p. 553) Each of the three branches of government have different roles than one another. The judicial branch deals with civil and criminal courts. The role of the judicial branch is to interpret the constitution and the laws. This power is the result of the “judicial review, established by Marbury v. Madison.” (Text, p. 522) The judicial review is the ability of the court to determine whether the actions of congress, state officials, or the president are unconstitutional. If the courts decide that the actions were unconstitutional, then that would result in a void. The judicial branch also has the role to limit the powers of the executive and legislative branches through checks and balances. Another role taken by the judicial branch is to resolve legal disputes. This was implemented by Congress with the Judiciary Act of …show more content…
1789. In addition, the judicial branch’s main body is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the “top court in the United States” (Parrett, Par. 7). Also, the Supreme Court cannot be challenged by anybody. The Supreme Court is where the interpreting of the constitution comes into play. The Supreme Court must decide who is right and who is wrong when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. Within the Supreme Court, there are nine Supreme Court justices. There is an odd number of justices so that the chances of a tie are nonexistent. Therefore, making the majority of the vote the final decision on an issue. A very interesting fact about Supreme Court justices is that once they are appointed into the Supreme Court, they are in it or life. Thus meaning, that they never have to run for reelection nor do they ever have to be reappointed. The president is granted the authority to appoint nominate judges to the Supreme Court. While this is true, the President cannot do it alone, he must be given advice by the Senate. If the judges are confirmed by the Senate then as long as they do not get impeached, then they will serve for life. This is one of the many reasons that being a justice in the Supreme Court is very important. They have as long as they could possibly need to change things within the government. They have longer than anyone to propose their ideas and to convince everyone else that their way is the right way. Next, the judicial branch has other, lower, courts in addition to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court “hears only a small percentage of the cases filed in federal court” (Text, p.522). The majority of cases are resolved within the trial courts which are the district courts. The “trials in district courts are either criminal or civil” (Text, p. 522). There are currently 94 judicial districts. If a case is appealed by the district court, it then goes on to the appellate courts. The appellate courts are the U.S. Courts of Appeals. There are twelve regional circuits and one federal circuit. After the Court of Appeals, the losing party can either appeal to an en banc (by the full court’) hearing or they can take it directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Likewise, “the Supreme Court’s procedure in handling cases consists of deciding whether to grant review and, if the review is granted, of receiving briefs, hearing oral arguments, deciding who wins, and writing the majority opinion” (Text, p. 529). On average around eight thousand defendants who lost, ask the Supreme Court to look at their cases. The Supreme Court justices cannot look and review each of the cases in their entirety. This is when the clerks come in to play. Clerks are usually graduates from law school. The justices ask their clerks to review the cases and to summarize them so that it is easier for the clerks to go through. A “discuss list” is then made by the Chief Justice for the cases he thinks are worthy of being discussed. The list then gets passes around and any justice can add a case if they wish. At this point, any case not on the “discuss list” is then thrown out completely. Then is up to the “rule of four.” The rule of four is the “Supreme Court rule that grants review to a case if as four of the justices support review” (Text, p. 531). Following the granting review process, the defendants then send written briefs as to why they think their side should win to the justices. After this, the justices hold a conference to decide which side has won the case. They also choose a justice to write the majority opinion. There are two different opinion that’s justices will typically write. One is called the concurring opinion. The concurring opinion is the “opinion that agrees with the results of the majority opinion but sets out a separate rationale” (Text, p.532). The other type of opinion is the dissenting opinion is the “opinion that disagrees with the majority opinion as to which party wins” (Text, p. 532). With that said, based on what I know about American National Government, I strongly believe that the judiciary, especially with the Supreme Court, is the most powerful branch of all.
The reason I believe this is because the judicial branch simply has the most power out of the three branches in America. The judicial branch has the ability to tell the General Assembly if a law they passed was unconstitutional. If they decide that, they can void the law. Therefore, making the law passed not valid. The judicial branch also has the power to tell a Governor or even the President of the United States that a certain action is in violation of the Constitution The fact that the judicial branch has the power to decide whether a law passed by Congress is unconstitutional or not, shows the tremendous amount of power held by the judicial branch of government. The judicial branch also has the power to check the powers of the executive and legislative branches of government. For example, in 2014, A federal judge found part of former President Obama’s immigration actions as unconstitutional. The judge then called him out about his actions and it was talked about and debated for a while. The Judicial Branch has declared more than one hundred federal laws as unconstitutional. Therefore, this is one of the many reasons that I believe the judicial branch of government is the most powerful. I also think that the judicial branch, especially with the Supreme Court, is the most powerful because the
decisions made by the Supreme Court hold some sort of national importance. If a case makes it to the Supreme Court, then it is usually something the whole nation is talking about. Therefore, the decision made on the cases has a very high impact on the United States as a whole. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. The decision made by the Supreme Court is the ultimate decision. Nobody can change or reject a decision made by the Supreme Court. Congress nor the President of the United States can change or reject the decision made by the Supreme Court judges. In conclusion, the National Government in America has many different aspects to it. There are many different things that go into the government to make it run properly and as smoothly as possible. A lot of time and effort had to be put in from elected officials to run the government. Although there are three different branches of American government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, I believe that the judicial branch is the most powerful. The judicial branch has many different roles, many different powers they hold, and many jobs they are responsible to perform. There are many reasons I believe that the judicial branch is the most powerful branch of the United States government, but the main reason is because nobody can touch the judicial branch. The judicial branch, especially with the Supreme Court, is the most powerful of them all. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation. Therefore, nobody, not even the President, can supersede a decision made by the Supreme Court. Nobody can reject or ignore a decision made by the Supreme Court. With that said, this is why I believe that the judiciary, especially with the Supreme Court, is the most powerful branch of government.
One of the Judicial Branch’s many powers is the power of judicial review. Judicial review allows the Supreme Court to decide whether or not the other branches of governments’ actions are constitutional or not. This power is very important because it is usually the last hope of justice for many cases. This also allows the court to overturn lower courts’ rulings. Cases like Miranda v. Arizona gave Miranda justice for having his rules as a citizen violated. The court evalutes whether any law was broken then makes their ruling. Also, the Weeks v. United States case had to be reviewed by the court because unlawful searches and siezures were conducted by officers. One of the most famous cases involving judicial review was the Plessey v. Ferguson
The three branches of the federal government is the Legislative, Judicial, and the Executive branch. According to the federalist papers, the Legislative branch is the strongest branch since they enact laws, therefore, by cutting the legislative branch in half by creating a Senate and a House of representatives, it makes the separation of powers more of a level playing field. Furthermore, the Judicial branch is considered the weakest out of the three since it has "...no influence over either the sword or the purse... can take no active resolution whatever... neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must... depend upon the aid of the executive arm... for... judgments” (Hamilton, Federalist 78) This means that it has no monetary or military power and that it relies directly on the legislative and executive branches to follow their rulings which makes sure that the government does not have too much power individually. Therefore, since it is the weakest branch, the court has the power of judicial review, which is the ability to decide whether acts by the other branches are constitutional or not (Hamilton, Federalist 78). Furthermore, one should not be concerned about the use of excess of power since according to Hamilton these are good people who aren’t influenced by outside sources other than the constitution. The separation of these three branches creates a system of checks and balances in which each individual form of government is independent of one another and is able to ensure that each other do not step out of line (Hamilton, Federalist
The Constitution confers judicial power on the Supreme Court and on inferior courts as created by Congress (Hames & Ekern, 2013). Judicial review is the power of the court to interpret the Constitution and invalidate conflicting laws.
Judicial Branches basic job is to determine if laws or acts are unconstitutional. Subsequently, the U.S. Judicial branch checks both the Executive and Legislative branch through checks and balances. The judicial branch has the ability to rule presidential actions unconstitutional and has its judges serve for life. The Judicial Branch can also declare and interpret laws written by the Legislative Branch, and signed by the Executive Branch, unconstitutional. One example of the Judicial Branch checking the Executive Branch was in Late 2014 when the Judicial Branch declared Obama’s immigration acts unconstitutional. This allows the Judicial Branch to check the Executive Branch by allowing laws passed by the Executive Branch to be unconstitutional and not be
The judiciary branch is the seen as the “least dangerous” branch; therefore, it will not be able to attack the way the other two branches can and it cannot defend itself against attacks. The judicial branch is only seen as one that can pass judgment on cases that are either constitutional or unconstitutional, but it cannot act on it; therefore, the reason they are seen as less dangerous and cannot compare to the power that the executive and legislative branch have. They have to hear appeals,
In The Federalist No. 78, the conception of judiciary is introduced as a system of checks and balances to protect the civil liberties of the citizens from the other branches of government. At the same time, the judiciary concept is considered to have the least amount of power of the three branches. It is stated by Hamilton in this section of the Federalist Papers, “The Judiciary has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will” (The Federalist No. 78). The judicial system serves as a barrier in preventing the other branches of power from making decisions that infringe upon their
The Judiciary Branch offers checks and balances to the other branches of government. To both the Legislative and Executive branches, the Judicial Branch holds the power of judicial review. The Judicial branch can also declare existing laws as unconstitutional.
The Role of Courts in American Politics The third branch of the federal government is the judicial branch. Before the existence of the Constitution, a system of state courts was in place. Through much controversy and compromise a decision was accomplished, which put in place the Supreme Court. In Article III, Section 1, "The judicial power of the United Statesshall be vested in one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The Supreme Court was initially set up as a part of the separation of powers in the American political system.
The Judicial Branch consists of the United States Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. Their role is to hear cases that challenges the legislation or are in need of interpretation of that legislation. (Phaedra Trethan, 2013) (Federal Government, 2003) (Sparknotes, LLC, 2011) (Independence Hall Association, 2008-2012)
In conclusion, The Legislative Branch is the most powerful branch of the United States government not only because of the powers given to them by the Constitution, but also the implied powers that Congress has. There is also Congress’s ability to triumph over the Checks and balances that limits their power. The only thing truly holding The Legislative Branch back from gaining all the power, is the large amount of people involved in the process and their difference and ideologies, and that Congress is split into multiple houses, with public opinion and elections affecting half of the branch of government. Therefore, The Legislative Branch is the most powerful branch of the United States Government.
The Supreme Court of the United States has the highest authority in the Judicial Branch and is the third branch of government. The function of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution. The Supreme Court looks at federal and state statues and executive actions to determine if they comply with the United States Constitution. On the Supreme Court, there are nine justices that hear cases that have been appealed through the justice system. When the Supreme Court rules in a case that is the la...
The legislative, executive, and judicial branches represent the constitutional infrastructure foreseen by the Founding Fathers for our nation 's governing body. Together, they work to maintain a system of lawmaking and administration based on checks and balances, and separation of powers intended to make certain that no individual or embodiment of government ever becomes too controlling. America is governed by a democratic government or a democracy which is a government by the people, in which the power is established in the people themselves. The people then elect representatives who carry out their power in a free electoral system. The United States government’s basic claim is to serve the people and only through a combined effort can we
Judiciary as the Most Powerful Branch of Government In answering this question I will first paint a picture of the power that the court holds, and decide whether this is governmental power. Then I will outline the balances that the court must maintain in its decision making and therefore the checks on its actions as an institution that governs America. "Scarcely any political question arises that is not resolved sooner or later into a judicial question." (Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America) If we take Tocqueville on his word then the American Judiciary truly is in a powerful position.
The federal government consist of three branches for each one has a specific role that protects and serves each person in the United States. The Constitution established these branches to enhance a stronger federal government as well as to make sure the states worked as one instead as individuals. The method in which it is used goes by Judicial, Legislative, and Executive, these branches go from creating the laws, to implementing laws, to finally interpreting the law. It became known as checks and balances, so that no branch would over power another. Once creating these boundaries, the government became more unified and therefore able to control the country much more formally through the courts. To see the beginning of the never ending, the
The doctrine of judicial review which dictates the conditions as per which executive and legislative actions would be reviewed by the judiciary; which also has the power to render them invalid. The acts of the state may be annulled by the power of judicial review, exercised by certain courts when they are found to be non-compliant to higher power, such as constitutional laws. Therefore, the concept of judicial review essentially represents the accountability mechanisms which form part of the modern governmental system (where various governmental branches are checked by the judiciary). Interpretations of this principle vary by jurisdictions, as do the various opinions on hierarchy and norms of government. Resultantly, the scope and procedure of judicial review is subject to change depending on states and countries.