The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court is the judicial branch of government consisting of all national courts with the power to interpret the Constitution and other laws as well as review lower court decisions (Stuckey & Salvucci, 2003). The court system in the United States serve as the forum that the citizens and the government may use to make sure the interpretation of the law is fair in the event of civil disobedience.
Every American Citizen receives guaranteed rights promised by the Constitution and is subject to receive due process of the law. Therefore, the government must ensure that every citizen receives equal protection under the law. The Judicial branch of the governments first responsibility is to interpret the Constitution. Supreme Court Judges receive their appointment by the President of the United States to serve as Supreme Court Justices and approval by the United States congress.
These Judges sole responsibility is to read, interpret, and make rulings concerning the correct application of law based upon their interpretation of the intent of the Constitution. According to Darden (2010) the rulings of the Justices is oftentimes, subject to the personal interpretation of the Constitution by the Justices. Interpreting the constitution is not an easy task.
Justices must resist the temptation to interject their personal values into the mental task of establishing the plain meaning of text (Darden, 2010). Finding the meaning of text is difficult because people read the Constitution from their personal point of view and sometimes fail to consider that the interpretation of the Constitution must be in correlation to the times in which the people live at the time of interpretation.
The Supreme Court is also the place that court cases in dispute in the lower court receive an additional review. The Justices in the Supreme Court has the task of reviewing all prior rulings of previous Judges, the Constitution, and the current context in which the case exists to make a ruling congruent with the original intent of the Constitution.
Ambiguity, complexity, and consistency are inherent in the decision-making process because the context of the original Constitution is vastly different from the current environment in which a case is tried. Therefore, the Supreme Court Justices are the experts in constitutional law. Sometimes, the Supreme Court ruling is overturned because, of the courts efforts to maintain the integrity of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in carrying out a just system of governance of the people who pledge allegiance to the United States of America. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land that champions the rights of the people.
References
Darden, S. (2010). Partial Textualism. The University of Memphis Law Review, 41(1), 1-64. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from ProQuest Central database. Stuckey, S. and Salvucci, L. K. (2003). Call to Freedom: 1865 to the Present. Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.