Trump

[padraig (u.s.)]

England has a Supreme Court but it's a very recent creation

I believe for most of British history the highest authority on interpretation of law was the House of Lords (or going back further, the king)?

Britain doesn't have an actual constitution so I'm not sure exactly how power is divided between PM, Parliament, and courts

 

[Leo]

that's why district court appointments are really important as well, apparently McConnell held off on congressional approval of tons of lower court appointments in Obama's second term and has allowed confirmation hearings of something like 70 of them in the past four year. SC is the ultimate arbiter, but lower courts have a lot of power.

 

[IdleRich]

Similar in the UK I guess but the executive and legislative branches are a bit mixed up.

 

[IdleRich]

ultimate ruling rather than first

Yeah I mean the first final ruling if that makes sense.

 

[IdleRich]

England has a Supreme Court but it's a very recent creation

I believe for most of British history the highest authority on interpretation of law was the House of Lords (or going back further, the king)?

Britain doesn't have an actual constitution so I'm not sure exactly how power is divided between PM, Parliament, and courts

It is a bit of a mess. But yeah I think it was part of the house of lords (law lords) before they invented the supreme court.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

well I mean there is no other final ruling besides the SC

you can bring another case on the same issue before the court if you think you'll get a different ruling cos the court's composition has changed

but it takes years to work your way up through lower courts

idk the exact ins and outs of it but much energy is specifically devoted to putting test cases before the SC on x issue

the Dred Scott case is one famous example

 

[Leo]

so here's a doozy of a story: I once spent time with The Right Honorable Lord Judge, who was until 2013 the equivalent of the US Chief Justice.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

that's why you always hear things like "litmus test" when it comes to SC nominees

people unsurprisingly care much more about how they'd rule on a specific issue than what their more abstract interpretation of law is

there are strong incentives for nominees to be as cagey as possible, which goes back to that stupid pretending game I mentioned above

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

The Right Honorable Lord Judge

Igor Judge Lord Judge 100% sounds like the head of all the judges in Mega-City One

 

[IdleRich]

well I mean there is no other final ruling besides the SC

I mean that the law exists and how it ought to be interpreted is not settled until the SC decides it. So in that sense they kinda create the ruling on that issue.
But what I don't get is that I thought it was settled once they'd ruled... so how are they always talking about overturning Roe vs Wade? Is there a way round it without actually contradicting the previous ruling?
And what if years ago the SC made a stupid decision that no-one agrees with now, how to overturn that?

 

[IdleRich]

so here's a doozy of a story: I once spent time with The Right Honorable Lord Judge, who was until 2013 the equivalent of the US Chief Justice.

What's the story then?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

But what I don't get is that I thought it was settled once they'd ruled... so how are they always talking about overturning Roe vs Wade? Is there a way round it without actually contradicting the previous ruling?

they're not issuing a new ruling on that specific case

they're issuing a new ruling on a different law related to the same issue, in this instance abortion

so when people say "overturning Roe v Wade" they're saying in effect rather than literally

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it never happens that there's a ruling everyone disagrees with, because there's no issue everyone agrees on at a given time

but the only way to directly "overturn" a ruling is to 1) bring a new case or 2) constitutional amendment (extremely difficult and rare)

there's a constant, dynamic interplay between the three branches - or there's supposed to be, i.e. checks and balances

the law isn't a static thing, it's always changing and being interpreted

 

[IdleRich]

I meant hypothetically if there was something that they ruled on while drunk 100 years ago.... but so you can bring the same case again? Is that case.... oh you answered my question in the post above.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

yeah the Supreme Court can rule on any level of law - state, federal, etc

but its ruling is has a blanket effect on all U.S. law - so Roe v Wade was a law in Texas but it applied to U.S. law

what the SC is "overturning" is the interpretation of constitutional concepts related to the issue

in that case, that the "right to privacy" in the 14th Amendment protects a woman's right to choose (within specific constraints) to have an abortion

(a later ruling on a different cases broadened those constraints)

a new ruling could say no, actually that isn't something the 14th Amendment does, and so state governments can outright ban abortion

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

whether that's the best way of doing things is another matter

personally I think if we're going to have a Supreme Court it should have either a long fixed term (20 years, say) or a set retirement age

just make it a set length of some kind that everyone knows in advance

which would achieve the same thing life terms do but without shit like rushing a nominee through before you lose control of Congress

or the ghoulish spectacle of ancient justices hanging on well past when they should in hopes of an ideologically favorable replacement

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah that seems reasonable.
This relevant in the UK too where the second house is a mess and constantly being threatened with abolition or "reform" and now the Tories are going after the judges who have an unfortunate habit of not doing what they're told. They are completely trying to dismantle the separation of powers and checks and balances.
Of course hereditary and appointed life peers aren't the way to create a second chamber (personally I'd suggest PR there if we can't have it in the commons - and maybe the votes on a different cycle to the commons so it's not the same make-up) but really thank fuck we do have something there at the moment even if one of them is Ian Botham.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Igor Judge Lord Judge 100% sounds like the head of all the judges in Mega-City One

I can't actually work out if he is a judge called Lord, a lord called Judge, or somehow both at the same time.

 

[IdleRich]

I think his name is Judge and he is a judge and a lord.
There are or have been some great ones in the House of Lords - Lord Dubs, Baroness Lady Garden, General Sir Michael Jackson....
Though perhaps the Philippines' Cardinal Sin beats all of them.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Lord Adonis was a particularly good one (and technically a tautology).