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... be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress from time to time may ordain an establish. (The Constitution states). All nine federal judges are appointed by the President and serve during good behavior, usually meaning for life. The judges cannot be removed from office except for criminal behavior or malfeasance. This makes them less vulnerable to political pressure than they would be if they had to depend upon politicians or the voters for new mandates.
The main feature of the independent role for the courts lies in their power to interpret the Constitution. They review the constitutionality of laws and executive orders. The number of justices is decided by Congress, and they can be impeached by congress. There are also Inferior Courts: One hundred District Courts and thirteen Courts of Appeals, all of them are created by Congress, with judges appointed by the President (with Senate approval). All federal courts hear cases involving federal law, involving state laws whose constitutionally is changed, involving the U. S. , involving two separate states, and involving citizens of different states.
Having presented the three branches of U. S. government in broad strokes, I will now turn in to how the separation of powers is designed to work. The system of government is commonly referred to as the system of checks and balances. It is designed to work so as to avoid placing too much power in too few hands. The most powerful tool Congress has (most important checks on the power of the President) is the power to appropriate money (set aside money for some specific purpose).
After both houses of Congress have approved the budget, it is sent over to the President. He / she has to sign the bill into law. Another major check on the power of the President is the Senate's power of advice and consent. The President is obliged to ask for the advice and consent of the Senate on all major appointments (e. g. members of the president's Cabinet, new justices of the Supreme Court, other federal judges, and members of administrative or regulatory agencies) and major foreign policy decisions he / she makes (e.
g. when it concerns treaties). To declare war, the President must turn to both houses of Congress for their approval. The president's major countervailing power in the legislative process is the power of the veto.
The President must sign any proposed legislation before it becomes law; his failure or refusal to do so can thus stop any bill. If the President returns a bill to Congress with a veto on it, the legislature has the power to override the President's veto by re-passing the legislation by a two-thirds majority in both houses. Then the bill becomes law without the President's signature. (If the President does not wish to be associated with a bill but does not feel that it is worthwhile to prevent it from becoming law, he can demonstrate this by using a so-called pocket veto: he / she simply lets it lie on his / her desk for ten days without signing it or vetoing it, in which case it becomes law without the President's signature. ) The Congress has the power to impeach the President. (A complex matter that involves the House of Representatives and its Judicial Committee or a special ad hoc committee, the Senate, the Chief Justice of the U. S. (the Supreme Court) Turning to the relationship between Congress and the Supreme Court, we find that Congress has the power to determine the construction of the Court (and its inferior courts).
As mentioned before, the Congress has some say in whom will sit on the Supreme Court bench, in that nominations made by the President must be approved by the Senate. I have already touched the "checks" between the Supreme Court and the President. Just as the President may be impeached by the Congress, so may justices of the Supreme Court (indeed, all civil officials, except members of Congress) be removed from office by impeachment. The single countervailing "arrow" of power aimed at Congress by the Supreme Court is the comprehensive power of judicial review (as mentioned earlier on in the paragraph about the Supreme Court). This review of laws by the courts is not an "automatic" part of the legislative process, but the specific laws have to be brought before the courts for a decision about their constitutionality.
If Congress finds that the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution in a way which disagrees with its own fundamental views (or for any other reason), then Congress can initiate the process of amending the Constitution. A majority of two thirds of both houses of Congress must pass the amendment. As soon as three quarters of the states (thirty-eight of them) have ratified the proposed amendment it becomes a part of the Constitution. In all these ways the Constitution checks the unrestricted exercise of power by each branch and balances of the powers of the branches against each other. The Framers, when giving a new shape to the national government, based on their own experience as far as the structure of the legislative powers go.
They had access to every level of the western tradition of mixed government theory. The shape and nature of the government proposed by the Framers, as it was mentioned before, was also heavily influenced by ancient theories, among which there was the theory of a Greek philosopher Polybius, that clearly outlined the risks and possibly the damages that can affect a country ruled by an undemocratic government. Polybius distinguished three different forms of government: monarchy (rule by the one), aristocracy (rule by the few), and democracy (rule by the many). According to him, monarchy, inevitably degrades into tyranny. Tyranny is then replaced by aristocracy, which in turn degrades into oligarchy.
Oligarchy then is overthrown by democracy, which ultimately falls into its own corresponding distortion, mob-rule (or ochlocracy). In Polybius analysis, the cycle then starts up again (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) since anarchy inevitably creates a void that some new demagogue will fill. This simple theory proved to be true in some European countries and the Framers, having witnessed the French Revolution, made an attempt to prevent a similar chain of events in the United States. Although an ideal political system does not exist, democracy seems to be an ultimate one. Years of experience of many countries and nations shows that a democratic system based on the separation of powers is stable and safe. To sum up, there is a number of reasons why I consider the system of checks and balances a key issue in the American democracy.
The system proved to be the right one, functioning nearly flawlessly for so many years. Its roots can be found in the works of great political philosophers, and its beginnings can be traced in the ancient centuries. Nowadays, most national, state, and local governments have at least the mechanics of a system of checks and balances. Even dictatorial governments, otherwise scorning restraints on powers, provide internal checks to insure proper performance by governmental agencies and to fix responsibility. The division of state governments into three branches with some amount of control over each other functions in most contemporary countries, including Poland.
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Research essay sample on Separation Of Powers And The System Checks Balances
