Judicial discretion

Although the Judicial branch is the last branch of government, it is by no means less important than the other two branches of government. This branch is composed of the Supreme Court and the lower federal court system and is in charge of interpreting the law. In the third article of the Constitution, all courts in the Judicial branch have the power to decipher the law, have a Chief Justice who is in charge of making the hard decisions over trials that deal with presidential impeachment, and…

their argument. The Supreme Court should have the power to overturn unconstitutional federal laws. Federalist No. 78, the Marbury v. Madison decision, Article III of the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789 are prime examples to prove that the judicial branch has the authority to do so. First of all, in Federalist No. 78, written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788; declares that, “[The] courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature...”(Doc D). In other…

“Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth used rhetorical strategies very effectively. Truth used rhetorical strategies effectively because her tone, text structure, figurative language, and the rhetorical devices she used let the audience know what she was feeling and why she was fighting for was she was fighting for. Truth used many rhetorical strategies in her speech but pathos, logos, ethos, allusion, juxtaposition, and pinpointing really made her argument valid and strong. Sojourner Truth’s…

of a constitution such as the separation of powers. In the UK the constitutional reform act certainly tried to implement a separation of powers. The Supreme Court in the UK took over the existing role of the Law Lords as well as some powers of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and removed the functions of Speaker of the House of Lords and Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales from the office of Lord Chancellor which applied a greater separation of powers. However in the U.S they…

standards of decency calls for evolvement of laws, the idea of rewriting the American Constitution every 19 years elicit many concerns. First, rewriting the Constitution is unnecessary and impractical given our use of precedents and the power of judicial review. Not only so, there are dangers of rewriting the law so often because there are social risks and consequences…

when everyone sees it differently. The issue of judicial restraint vs. judicial activism is that judicial activism* is generally refers to judges who allow their personal and political views to affect their interpretation of the law, and, consequently, their decisions in important cases. Judicial activists are often accused of ignoring stare decision when making their decisions. (American Psychological Assoc.) For Judicial restraint is a judicial interpretation that encourages judges to…

others for the case to be valid. Marshall’s creation of judicial review can be held to the same standard of three questions. First, is judicial review constitutionally acceptable? Second, if judicial review is acceptable, does the Judiciary Act violate the Constitution by Marshall’s reading? And third, if the two previous questions hold up, did Marshall even interpret the Constitution correctly. On the question of the constitutionality of judicial review, there is a relative grey area as the…

In the book Mighty Judgement, Philip Slayton talks about the Supreme Court of Canada as a government institution which needs reform on the premises that Supreme Court of Canada is powerful, paternalistic, competent, undemocratic, and secretive. Slayton begins with the question of whether judges make or interpret the law and whether they should be doing only one of those things. Also, he describes the historical past of the Supreme Court, and how the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms affected…

more power than another. In our government, there is a hierarchy of power. Congress, the legislative branch, is the most powerful of the three, the president, executive branch, is next in the order of most powerful, finished by the Supreme Court, judicial branch. Their powers each lie in different areas and there is a great separation of power as the framers intended, however, there are some aspects in which these branches overlap and that is where the different amounts of power can be observed.…

U.S. Supreme Court Institutional Legitimacy It is rumored that in reaction to a ruling from the Supreme Court in 1832, President Andrew Jackson stated, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” This quote highlights a problem with the Supreme Court in which it can neither create nor enforce legislation. Because it has ”no influence over either the sword or the purse,” the Court must rely on its institutional legitimacy to ensure its rulings are respected (Hamilton 1788).…