3. Balance of powers

2018 ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
David J. Bodenhamer
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
National Power

Two questions guided the framers when dividing power among the branches of government: What were the limits and purposes of national power? What were the roles and responsibilities of the various branches in exercising the government’s authority? ‘Balance of powers’ explains that no single event resolved these questions. Each branch has made large claims of power; each has experienced stinging rebuffs to those claims. The struggle involving the balance of power is described, including the Supreme Court and the President seizing opportunities to define their own constitutional powers as equal to Congress. Today’s hyper-partisanship has weakened Congress, although both division and inaction serves as an informal set of checks and balances.

scholarly journals BAAS Keynote Speech A Passion for Democracy: Proximity to Power and the Sovereign Immunity Test

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-303
Author(s):  
DANA D. NELSON
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Sovereign Immunity ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Keynote Speech ◽  
National Power ◽  
The Media ◽  
Run Up

In the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, a Bush administration official memorably explained to New York Times reporter Ron Suskind, “when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality … we'll act again … We're history's actors … and you … will be left to … study what we do.” This comment was taken both as the administration's assessment of the intellectual left, and as a window into Bush's executive philosophy. Then many believed then that a different President – a liberal or progressive President – would renounce such unilateralism. But these arguments didn't evidence the peculiarity of George W. Bush's Machtpolitik. Rather, they draw on a deep and relatively unnoticed tradition in US political history and government, of the ever more aggressive executive expansion of presidential powers. That expansion has come through the ambitions, machinations, and moxie of individual Presidents – some of them impressively gifted leaders. It has also come through the active and passive consent of citizens, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The President has come to symbolize both our democratic process and our national power: citizens see him simultaneously as democracy's heart and its avenging sword. That trust, trained into US citizens from our earliest days in school, reinforced by popular culture and by the media, makes citizens want to give the President more power, regardless of the Constitutional checks and balances we also learn to treasure as schoolchildren. Over time, this accumulating consent to ever-increasing presidential power means that Presidents are free to act – even in ways that upset the Constitution's balance of power – and that citizens by and large approve, and those who don't are left studying what they did.

Twin Kyrgyz votes will bring less, not more democracy

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Functional System ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Mining Sector ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Supreme Court

Significance The changes will tilt the balance of power in the direction of more authoritarian rule, with Japarov in charge. Parliament and the Supreme Court have signally failed to perform their roles of scrutinising and halting a series of processes that are clearly out of control. Impacts A functional system of checks and balances has collapsed as illegal actions and political intimidation become the norm. Kyrgyzstan joins Georgia and arguably Armenia as a failing democracy in an undemocratic region. Western, Russian and Chinese investors will watch warily as the new authorities send mixed signals on the mining sector.

In Scalia’s Shadow

Never Trump ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 197-220
Author(s):  
Robert P. Saldin ◽  
Steven M. Teles
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
First Choice ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Future ◽  
Total Lack ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Trump Administration

This chapter explores the creation of Checks and Balances, a new group of conservative legal critics of the Trump administration. From his racist attack on the federal district judge ruling on the Trump University case and suspicions that he would appoint his own sister to the Supreme Court, to his threats to revise libel law so as to silence his rivals and his nearly total lack of constitutional discussion, Donald Trump was almost no prominent conservative lawyer's first choice. Once he dispatched all his Republican rivals, however, conservative lawyers were in a quandary. The death of Antonin Scalia, the most celebrated conservative jurist of his generation and a leader of the conservative legal movement, put the future of the Supreme Court squarely on the ballot. Once the character of Trump's governance became clear, Checks and Balances emerged to criticize the administration's legal conduct.

scholarly journals Elected Judges Lead to Less Partial Judges

Federalism-E ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
The People ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Head Of Government ◽  
Inappropriate Relationships

Canada’s government structure has long used the idea of Peace, Order, and Good government to justify the selection and subsequent terms of long political majorities and appointed justices.  This paper will be addressing the research question: should the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada be elected to increase Canadian democratic values or should they remain appointed?  Currently the Supreme Court of Canada is selected by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister.   In answering this research question this paper will weigh to the pros and cons of both the current judiciary system and a judiciary section based on elections in order to prove that Supreme Court of Canada justices should stay appointed. A crucial factor in the selection of supreme court judges is the idea of judicial independence. Justices are not elected in order to ensure that there is no partisanship or inappropriate relationships between the judiciary and the legislature. It is argued that this is null and void as a result of the fact that the judges are effectively chosen by the head of government.  In the Canadian system, there lies an important balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; this balance of power relies heavily on the Supreme Court being a non-partisan last check on any bills that reach it from the House. This is contrasted by the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada has last say on a plethora of issues that affect the lives of all Canadians and Canada is a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the power is always supposed to be derived from the people. Any power of government in Canada must trace its power back to the people for it to be considered legitimate.  After a compare and contrast of the effect that electing the Supreme Court of Canada will have on the judicial independence and the federal balance of power it is hypothesised that the Supreme Court of Canada should continue as an appointed body.

Más allá del quehacer jurisdiccional de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Quetziquel Flores Villicaña
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government ◽  
Investigation Powers

Article 49 of the Mexican Constitution establishes the tripartite division of the government where by each of the three divisions has certain enumerated powers that serve as checks and balances in a democracy. In the present work we will not analyze the jurisdictional powers of the Judiciary, but instead the legislative powers of the Supreme Court, as well as certain investigation powers whitin as well as how it worked and in which important cases such powers were exercised, as well as the constitutional amendment of June 10, 2011. Another power that we will analyze of the Supreme Court is the power to issue general agreements. Most notably, we will analyze the general agreements 10/2000 and 5/2001 for their impact on functions of the Supreme Court.

Japan

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Rubber Stamp ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government

This chapter looks at the Japanese experience with judicial review. The Supreme Court of Japan does not enforce those parts of the Japanese Constitution, like Article 9, which prohibits war making; Article 21, which protects freedom of speech; or Article 89, which forbids taxpayer money from being used to hire Shinto priests. The Supreme Court of Japan thus refuses to enforce important articles in the Constitution of Japan. It does rubber stamp and thus legitimize actions taken by the political branches of the government. Why has judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation failed to take root in Japan? Japan does not need either a federal or a separation of powers umpire, since Japan is, firstly, a unitary nation-state with no need for a federalism umpire; and, secondly, a parliamentary democracy with a weak upper house of the legislature. Moreover, Japan has never atoned for the wrongs it committed during World War II nor has it truly admitted to even having done the horrible things that Japan did. A nation cannot get rights from wrongs judicial review and a Bill of Rights unless it admits it has done something wrong. Finally, the Japanese Constitution contains an inadequate system of checks and balances. As a result, the Supreme Court of Japan may not have the political space within which it can assert power.

scholarly journals Legislative Delegation, the Unitary Presidency, and the Legitimacy of the Administrative State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Shane
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Presidential Power ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Administrative State ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Legislative Delegation ◽  
The Relationship

This essay focuses on the relationship between non-delegation doctrine and so-called unitary executive theory. It argues that, if the Supreme Court were to embrace unitary executive theory without, as is highly unlikely, tightening up on the non-delegation doctrine, the result would be a constitutional disaster in terms of reduced executive branch legal and political accountability. Increasing the legitimacy of the administrative state ought to involve more, not fewer mechanisms that subject the exercise of presidential power to effective checks and balances.

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