Judicial Power in a Political World

Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This concluding chapter synthesizes the book's main findings about the architectonic politics of judicial institution building and contextualizes them within contemporary debates. It also reflects upon the lessons of the more than 200-year historical lineage of the institutional judiciary for our understanding of judicial power in America. More specifically, it considers the place of the federal judiciary in America's past and future in empirical and normative terms, respectively. It argues that both political rhetoric and academic exegesis about the Supreme Court embody a fundamentally incorrect presumption about the judiciary being external to politics, and that such presumption leads to a series of misconceptions about the relationship between judicial power and democratic politics. The chapter offers a conception that not only locates the judicial branch squarely within the political arena but also places substantially greater emphasis on its cooperation rather than conflict with other actors and institutions in that arena.

Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This chapter examines the reorganization of the federal judiciary from the beginning of Thomas Jefferson's second term as president in 1805 until just prior to the Compromise of 1850. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the government faced a new set of challenges, many of which were the result of the vast territorial expansion. Territorial expansion and the politics of statehood admission intertwined with judicial reform attempts focused primarily on arranging states in circuits and ensuring regional geographic representation on the Supreme Court. The chapter considers the four stages in which the history of judicial institution building unfolded in the eras of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy: the Judiciary Act of 1807, the stalemate over the National Republicans' attempts to extend the circuit system to the West in the mid-1820s, the Whigs' failed consolidation plan of 1835, and the triumph of reform in the Judiciary Act of 1837.


Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This chapter examines the establishment of the federal judiciary from the beginning of George Washington's first term as president in 1789 to the end of Thomas Jefferson's first term in 1805. It considers three questions about the tumultuous politics of institutional design that followed the ratification of the Constitution: first, why judicial institution building was pursued; second, how it was accomplished; and third, what it achieved. It also discusses the three stages in which judicial institution building during this era occurred: stages: the policy compromise of 1789, the stalemate preventing large-scale judicial reform in the 1790s, and the flurry of policy and political initiatives of the early 1800s. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how Oliver Ellsworth's political entrepreneurship paved the way for a landmark, precedent-setting episode of judicial institution building that extended judicial power and expanded the judicial apparatus beyond simply the Supreme Court.


Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This book explores the historical processes contributing to the rise of the federal judiciary as an independent and autonomous institution of governance in the American political system. More specifically, it examines the puzzle of “judicial institution building” —the puzzle of understanding how the process of “building” the judiciary unfolded over the course of American political development. The book examines how the federal judiciary in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, overcame its early limitations and emerged as a powerful institution of American governance. It also considers the transformation of the federal judiciary from “judicial exceptionalism” to what might be called “architectonic” politics and offers a developmental account of judicial power. The book shows that the story of the judiciary's transformation involved a series of battles over law, courts, and the politics of institutional development.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Fauzan

The relationship between the Supreme Court by the Judicial Commission in the Republic of Indonesia system is not harmonious, this is due to the first, the disharmony between the law on judicial power, including the law on Judicial Power, the law on the Supreme Court, the law on Constitutional Court and the law on the Judicial Commission. Both of the leadership character that exist in the Supreme Court and the Judicial Commission were too emphasizes in ego that one sector feel more superior than the others. To create a harmonious relationship between Supreme Court and Judicial Commission can be done by establishing intensive communication between both of them and by improvement in legislation. Keywords : relation, Supreme Court, Judicial Commission   


Author(s):  
Fiseha Assefa

This chapter examines the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature in Ethiopia. The country has adopted a parliamentary system of government, but by contemporary standards, it has some unusual features. Its governments have historically blended judicial and executive functions, leaving the position of the judiciary somewhat unclear, and the Supreme Court has not tended to assert its power. There are signs of the use of legislative overrides to reverse individual decisions, and of ouster clauses to transfer jurisdiction on various issues from the courts to administrative tribunals within the executive. Although lower courts have attempted to review decisions of these tribunals, the Supreme Court has overruled them on the basis that it lacks jurisdiction. The highest ranks of the judiciary therefore seem to be accepting of a vision of the separation of powers in which other branches define the judicial role.


Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This chapter focuses on the empowerment of the federal judiciary from the Compromise of 1850 (admitting California into the Union as a free state and unofficially signifying the beginning of the political crisis leading to the Civil War) to the Compromise of 1877 (settling the disputed 1876 presidential election between Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes and representing the formal end of Reconstruction). The chapter asks why judicial institution building was pursued, how it was accomplished, and what it achieved within the context of mid-nineteenth century American politics. It examines the role of Republicans in Civil War and Reconstruction era institution building and how it resulted in a significant expansion of federal judicial power. It also considers the four stages in which the substantial empowerment of the judiciary occurred during the period, including the consolidation of a Republican-friendly Supreme Court through ameliorative reforms aimed at specific problems of judicial performance.


Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Linda Greenhouse

The relationship between the Supreme Court and public opinion remains ambiguous, despite efforts over many years by scholars both of the Court and of mass behavior to decipher it. Certainly Supreme Court Justices live in the world, and are propelled by the political system to their life-tenured positions. And certainly the Court, over time, appears to align itself with the broadly defined public mood. But the mechanism by which this occurs–the process by which the Court and the public engage one another in a highly attenuated dialogue–remains obscure. The Court's 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, offers a case in point. As the country began to reconsider the wisdom of the nineteenth-century criminalization of abortion, which voices did the Justices hear and to which did they respond? Probing beneath the surface of the public response to Roe serves to highlight rather than solve the puzzle.


Author(s):  
Guobadia Ameze

This chapter examines the relationship between the executive and the judiciary in Nigeria. It sketches the history of assertions of judicial power by Nigerian courts, including the 1966 action by the Supreme Court to assert the continued validity of the 1963 constitution in the face of a military coup. It considers the role of the National Judicial Council in appointing and disciplining judges, an important issue in many systems. It recounts the saga surrounding President of the Court of Appeal Justice Salami, which raises the troubling prospect of the Chief Justice ‘packing’ the Council and possibly colluding with the executive to pursue political goals and discusses the issue of disputes over the appointment of state chief justices, who are appointed by governors on the Council’s recommendation. It also offers the Nigerian perspective on control over judicial budgets and administration, before concluding with a review of some significant cases.


Author(s):  
Justin Crowe

This chapter considers the restructuring of the federal judiciary during the period of Republican dominance from the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877 to the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson in 1913. It shows that Gilded Age and Progressive Era politicians pursued judicial reform that focused less on the extent of judicial power and more on the structural logic and internal consistency of the institutional judiciary more generally. The chapter discusses the two stages in which judicial institution building occurred during the period: first, the Gilded Age attempt to unburden the Supreme Court by appointing a new slate of judges to staff circuit courts (1877–1891); and second, the Progressive Era unification and synchronization of all laws concerning the judiciary in one statute (1892–1914). The role played by Republicans and Democrats in judicial institution building in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is also examined.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-75
Author(s):  
Ajepe Taiwo Shehu

Abstract This paper examines judicial review and judicial power in Nigeria under the 1999 Constitution in relation to the constitution itself and in relation to the political branches of government. Th is is essentially to locate where lays supremacy between the branches and the judiciary particularly the Supreme Court with its final appellate jurisdiction. Judicial review and supremacy of the judiciary had been of recurring academic discuss in some jurisdictions with written Constitutions, particularly the United States from where Nigeria largely borrowed its presidential constitutionalism. This thus suggests that there is a need to examine the controversy within the context of Nigeria’s experience; is it really in the Constitution that creates branches of the government and that is proclaimed to be supreme over all authorities including the judiciary? Is it in the judiciary whose oversight function cuts across the political branches and whose interpretative decisions are binding on the constitution itself and the other branches? Is it in the executive that appoints and removes Justices of the court subject to confirmation by the Senate, or is it in the legislature? The paper argues that the overriding effect of the judicial power of the Supreme Court over all persons and authorities including the Constitution puts the judiciary in supreme position, that being the natural consequence of the power so vested in the judiciary by the “People Themselves.”


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