The Courts and the Will of the People
The Judiciary as the Best Point of External Entry to Manipulate the Affairs of State
“The people are behind us, we have resoundingly won the recent elections, we have drafted legislation that, if passed, would allow us to make important reforms that we were voted into office to complete. We have the votes to support our legislation. Nothing can stop us.”
“Isn’t there someone that you forgot to ask?”
Western democracies have three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Each has its own roles and duties to perform. In theory, each of the three branches are independent of one another, allowing for a system of checks and balances to prevent an erosion of democracy and forestall the rise of tyranny. It sounds so lovely!
Like everything theoretical, this separation of powers will run head-first into the brick wall of reality, leaving many with a bitter taste as to its fallout. Strict constitutionalists will insist that it’s simply too bad that the judiciary can strike down laws as being unconstitutional. They have a point. On the other hand, divisive political environments create conditions of legislative gridlock that make constitutional reform all but impossible, often for decades at a time. What are deemed “necessary reforms” and that have the backing of the popular will are then subject to the interpretation of that state’s constitution by the men and women in black aka the judiciary. This leaves that branch of government with quite a lot of power, and with human nature being as it is, permits a significant amount of partisanship to result from it.
“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”
This quote has been attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the incredibly wealthy founder of the banking dynasty that bears his name. Many dispute its attribution, with some claiming it to be the result of an Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
But like many faked quotes, there is indeed an element of truth in them. I think that there is a case to be made that the following line can also be viewed as being true:
Permit me the control of the nation’s judiciary, and I care not who makes its laws.
I am far, far away from the best person to write on this subject, which is why this entry will be a relatively short one. I have not studied law beyond the high school level, and whatever I did encounter on the subject while pursuing Political Science in university was always peripheral to where my focus was. There are some brilliant legal minds who read this Substack, so I apologize if I do make you cringe with anything that I have written up to this point, or after it as well. I hope that someone with a much better grounding in law than myself can cover the subject of this essay at length at some point in the near future. With that in mind……..