The Supreme Court of the USA

The Supreme Court consists of nine Justices: the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices. They have equal weight when voting on a case and the Chief Justice has no casting vote or power to instruct colleagues.

The Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed with the ‘advice and consent’ of the Senate. As federal judges, the Justices serve during “good behavior”, meaning essentially that they serve for life and can be removed only by resignation or by impeachment and subsequent conviction.

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. The court deals with matters pertaining to the federal government, disputes between states, and interpretation of the Constitution. It can declare legislation or executive action made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions.

The Supreme Court in practice has a much more ‘political’ role than the highest courts of European democracies. For example, the scope of abortion in the USA is effectively set by the Supreme Court whereas, in other countries, it would be set by legislation. This is why the appointment of Justices is often a very charged and controversial matter.

Given how difficult it is to change the US Constitution through the formal method, one has seen informal changes to the Constitution through various decisions of the Supreme Court which have given specific meanings to some of the general phases in the Constitution.

It is one of the many ironies of the American political system that an unelected and unaccountable body like the Supreme Court can in practice exercise so much political power in a system which proclaims itself as so democratic.