When the founding fathers of our country, and by that I mean the
Federalists, were creating the system of government for America, they knew that
a separation of power would be necessary to protect the American people from the
evils of a monarchy or dictatorship. In doing this, they created the three
branches of government; Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary. The plan was to
have the Legislative make the laws, Executive enforce the laws, and the
Judiciary interpret the laws, and it was Madison's system of "Checks and
Balances" that would keep the three in check. No one branch would be able to
exploit it's power without the scrutiny of one of the other branches, it seemed
to be the perfect system. However, when the Federalists proposed this system of
"Checks and Balances," they really didn't consider the Judiciary that much of a
threat of power, and because it wasn't considered a policy making branch like
the Executive and Legislative, it really wasn't thought of as part of that
system. Basically, the Judiciary would make sure that no law was unfairly
enforced on somebody, and anything else would merely be a bonus. The system of
"Checks and Balances" would then be the Executive watching over the Legislative,
and the Legislative watching over the Executive. To be more specific it would
be Congress watching over the President and the President watching over Congress.
This system, as I mentioned earlier seemed to be the perfect protection
against tyranny of any kind, and in fact it is quite effective, but I feel the
problem is in that the Federalists didn't take into account that the Judiciary
would in fact become a policy making branch in itself, with the power to check
any one of the other two branches just as much as they would check each other.
Robert Dahl wrote, "To consider the Supreme Court of the United States strictly
as a legal institution is to underestimate its signifi...