The Judiciary help contribute towards a strong US constitution through judicial review. Judicial review is a review by the Supreme Court of the constitutional validity of a legislative act. This allows the judiciary to interpret the constitution in different ways, which consequently sets an example to which similar cases are then dealt with. For example the Brown V Board of Education 1954, set out to deal with the segregation of Black African Americans from the rest of society via the Bill of Rights which is written into the constitution. Due to this court ruling a precedent has been since set, and many people would argue, in particular, pressure groups that support this cause along the line of equality, that this case has so far been the biggest step towards equality than anything else to date. This showing the power of the Judiciary and in particular their interpretations on the constitution. Whilst this may be a strength in showing that the Constitution may not be as rigid as it first appears to be, it does also raise questions over potential weaknesses of the constitution, for example, is it right that a body of 9 member that aren’t elected by the public have the ability to have such a major say? Is that really democratic? It would be difficult to give a simple to answer to either of these questions, but they do raise issues over the power that an unelected body has the potential to use. Another issue would be whether the Supreme Court is right to question legislation but forward by the elected government? A more democratic view would state that this enables the minorities to have a say against legislation that could potentially prosecute them. This type of action is done through the Checks and Balances system.
The checks and balances is a feature much like the Supreme Court that allows the three sections of the American system to be held to accountability. The three parts would include the executive, legislature and judiciary. This is a system of government in which each branch exercises control over the actions of other branches of government. The main checks are done by the legislature on the executive and include amend/delay/rejecting legislature, power of the purse, confirmation of appointments within the senate, impeachment, trial, conviction and removal from office, etc. This is undoubtedly a strength of the US constitution as it allows each branch of government’s power to be restricted whilst allowing them to still carry out their job effectively. A weakness of the system is that it potentially doesn’t carry out its job as effectively when the houses are controlled by the president’s party and hence the level of scrutiny weakens. In addition to this, when the house(s) are controlled by the opposing party then the president may not be able to function properly which can lead to gridlock. Gridlock would be argued by many Centralists and most Liberalist as a key weakness as the President isn’t able to govern effectively, possibly to enable the other party to score ‘political points’ rather than have the interests of the country at heart as the Constitution set out for it too have. Although, the conservatives would take a different approach arguing that it stopped Central Government from interfering in citizens lives as they believe that ‘little government is a better government’. In addition to these weaknesses another potential weakness could be the elections themselves....
The elections, in particular the Presidential election which is held every 4 years there has been 3 times when the candidate with the highest percentage of popular vote has in fact not become the President due to the electoral college system. In 1876, 1888 and 2000 this has happened and can be argues as a weakness to the constitution whereby the person who the majority of America has voted for doesn’t become their President. In all 3 instances it has been the matter of a couple of percent (if that) yet it is more a matter of principle. This seems almost undemocratic when the aim of the constitution was to give the people what they desired if it were possible. In defence of this it has happened 3 times in over a 200 year history although it must still be argued as a weakness. Another weakness that the constitution has got is over the issue of declaring War since this is meant to be a measure that is discussed by the President with the Legislature, yet in recent years it has been a measure taken by the President and his senior staff and then the legislature has had little choice but to go along with the President or else face seeming unpatriotic. This goes against the Founding Fathers wishes whereby they intended the President to be reactive and the Legislature to be proactive, however it would seem that the roles have been reversed. There are 3 generalised views on the constitution over its strengths and weaknesses.
The first view would be the liberalist view that believes in positive freedoms and opportunities, an active government – for example the government should get involved to prevent discrimination -; they favour equal rights amendments such as the Brown V Board of Education and strongly believe in the importance of federal government. The liberalists are fairly content with the constitution and have been especially in recent years where power has become more centralised due to National Issues such as the economy and foreign affair. The opposing view to this would be that of the conservatives who believe that government shouldn’t interfere in the lives of other unless it is deemed absolutely necessary, they also take the view that the word freedom means the absence of interference from government, they feel that taxing the rich to help the poor demotivates people from bringing in new ideas/furthering education or just having a desire to succeed, they argue that the best ideas have come when there has been little interference such as when Microsoft was
created. Overall they believe in states’ rights. The conservatives are severely unhappy with the constitution as they believe that it is interfering too much in the lives of citizens by placing too many restrictions, an example of discontent would be when the NCLB Act 2001 was introduced that got involved at a central level in education, which they strongly felt was a state issue. The centralists believe that the constitution is well balanced as citizens are given enough freedom without restricting government’s effectiveness and that history has shown that the constitution stands up.
In conclusion it is obvious to see that the US has both weakness - in the form of elections, power to declare war and the conservative view – and positives – as shown by the test of time, its rigidity yet ability to evolve and its check and balances system. I would argue that the positives do outweigh the weaknesses as the constitution has proved over the last 200 years that while it is rigid enough to stop government intervention where not deemed appropriate it has also been able to evolve, as well as allowing citizens to understand their rights.
