Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Judicial Activism Versus Judicial Restraint
As we watched Episode Two of the show "The Supreme Court," which explained the Supreme Court and its relation to the battle between labor and capital in the early twentieth century, two terms came up: judicial activism and judicial restraint. Justice Holmes believed in judicial restraint, which was the belief that the Supreme Court should "shut up" and not interfere with what the people want or desire to do, unless something that the people want to do is completely and undoubtedly unconstitutional. On the other hand, the Four Horsemen of the Supreme Court, who were Justices James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler, believed in judicial activism, which was the belief that the Supreme Court should try to impose their own beliefs about what was morally right to do by manipulating the Constitution to support their ideas about what was morally right. In my opinion, I believe that the Supreme Court should take a more judicially restraint ruling style. This is because the Supreme Court judges rule for life, so often, many of the judges became out of touch with the younger generations who have fresh ideas. If Supreme Court judges rule by their own opinions, they could be denying the ability for the younger generations' new ideas to be tried out or to advance people's liberties in the opinion of these younger generations. By ruling based only on whether something is truly and undoubtedly unconstitutional or not, the Supreme Court judges would allow progress to occur much quicker (instead of continuing to block possible new legislation that could advance liberty like in the battle between labor and capital) while still making sure to keep the fundamental freedoms of all people in place (in case possibly this new legislation goes too far). The "truly and undoubtedly unconstitutional" doctrine would prevent Supreme Court judges from loosely interpreting the Constitution to falsely claim that a new piece of legislation that advances liberties for one group takes away liberties from others when objectively under the aforementioned doctrine, the legislation does not unconstitutionally take away rights from certain groups of people.
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This is a great point I have never thought about the Supreme Court changing the way they rule court cases. I think they should consider this strategy but they should not completely rule by what the constitution says because it can tend to be outdated. Overall I love your point and it really made me think.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if the judges were less partisan or biased about their choices, it would pave a way for new legislation and progress. I also think that it is important to understand that many of these supreme court justices are from eras where it is not as progressive as now and because supreme court justices take their job to the grave or until retirement, it is very hard to change their mind about certain issues. However with a new "set" of supreme court justices that would rule solely on how constitutional or unconstitutional something is would definitely strengthen the power of the supreme court and protect peoples rights.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post, and I liked how you provided examples of judicial activism and restraint. I agree with your argument that since Supreme Court justices have lifetime tenure, they may become out of touch with the younger generations and inhibit progress. One example is the recent technological revolution. All of the current Supreme Court Justices are over 50 years old and most likely do not have a good understanding of topics like the internet. This could be disastrous in regards to legislation enforcing technology, such as digital privacy and net neutrality. I believe that in the modern era of extreme political polarization, it is important for the Supreme Court to be as unbiased as possible.
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