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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

So in this grand system of 'checks and balances', who checks the judicial branch's power to arbitrarily strike down any law passed by congress and signed by the president? I'm asking because it's not clear who, or how, and it seems that the judicial branch continues to become more OP over time.

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You forget that the Supreme Court can only hear those cases that are brought before it, and that Congress can pass new laws to replace ones that have been struck down. In principle, it could even pass the exact same law again. It might get struck down again, but there's no actual penalty for making an unconstitutional law.

Arbitrarily? This judge ruled on a case brought to his court.

It's arbitrary because it depends on 1 judge's interpretation of the constitution. Not all judges agree on how it should be interpreted. If it gets appealed, then rinse/repeat. The Supreme Court gets the final say, and it largely depends which 'party' is in power there (which depends on which 'party' controls both executive and legislative branches when it is time to pick a new judge).

Yeah...that doesn't look good right now, if you're on the left side of politics....

The check is to amend the Constitution.

That's a HUGE amount of effort, more then the effort to check the executive and/or legislative branches...

> That's a HUGE amount of effort

That's a feature, not a bug.

It's a bug, because it depends on which party is in power, and their leanings on the issue. Parties change power at the drop of a hat, constitutional amendments are exceedingly much harder to pull off.

That's the point. If the constitution changed every four years, it wouldn't be much use.

The best thing we could do is give supreme court term limits, this would make it less of a game of roulette, and more of a fairness factor... Maybe have 9 supreme court justices. A president may pick 2 on the start of his first term. The 5 longest serving rotate out. The Speaker of the house and Senate Majority leader sworn in after the presidential election each get to nominate 1 justice. The last seat is nominated and filled internally by those on the supreme court, but must be approved by congress as does the president's choices.

So for instance say there's 9 justices in 2020. 9 - 5(retiring) = 4 4 + 5(new) = 9

Justices may serve multiple terms, and a president could 're-nominate' a sitting judge, but this makes the system more fluid, and less controlled by a single party in power unless they control both chambers, the white house, and supreme court already.

While that may seem like a good idea in principle, that politicizes the Supreme Court even more.

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