{"id":4451,"date":"2008-05-23T00:26:56","date_gmt":"2008-05-23T07:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/05\/23\/yes-courts-can-overrule-even-popular-laws-thats-what-courts-are-for\/"},"modified":"2008-05-23T00:26:56","modified_gmt":"2008-05-23T07:46:44","slug":"yes-courts-can-overrule-even-popular-laws-thats-what-courts-are-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4451","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Courts Can Overrule Even Popular Laws. That's What Courts Are For."},"content":{"rendered":"

Glenn Greenwald responds<\/a> to the “judicial tyranny” objection to the California Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage:<\/p>\n

This reasoning — that it undermines “democracy” and constitutes judicial tyranny when a court strikes down a popular law — is so pervasive every time there is a controversial court decision. But it is as woefully misinformed as it is common.<\/p>\n

That a law invalidated by a court is supported by a large majority is not an argument supporting the conclusion that the court’s decision was wrong<\/b>. Central to our system of government is the premise that there are laws which even the largest majorities are prohibited from enacting because such laws violate the constitutional rights of minorities. Thus, the percentage of people who support the law in question, and how lengthy and painstaking the process was that led to the law’s enactment, is totally irrelevant in assessing the propriety of a court decision striking down that law on constitutional grounds.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Wittes’ extremely confused argument, a court striking down a law supported by large majorities is not antithetical to our system of government. Such a judicial act is central<\/b> to our system of government. That’s because, strictly speaking, the U.S. is not a “democracy” as much as it a “constitutional republic,” precisely because constitutional guarantees trump democratic majorities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glenn Greenwald responds to the “judicial tyranny” objection to the California Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage: This reasoning — that it undermines “democracy” and constitutes judicial tyranny when a court strikes down a popular law — is so pervasive … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}