I see in the news all the time so and so judge blocks this bill? How does one judge hold that much power?
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Because that’s literally their job. It’s their job to determine if a law operates within the confines of the constitution. Just like the President, a single person, is invested with a lot of power, too.
But no single judge is the end of the line, so it’s not really accurate to suggest they have this power unilaterally. We have a well established appeals process, leading all the way up to the Supreme Court, where we have 9 Justices, appointed by the President and vetted by the Senate.
Because that’s how the judicial system works.
Somebody brings a case stating that there’s a problem with some law or policy. The judge may order that, until the trial is over, the policy be put on hold. Whether they do really depends on the judge’s call on whether continuing the policy or stopping it during the trial will cause more problems.
If the judge rules for the people making the complaint when the trial is over, the judge is empowered to tell the government, “hey, you wrote this policy, but it is not in keeping with other rules and policies that supersede it. I’m ordering it be stopped.”
If the state doesn’t like this result, they’re welcome to appeal to a higher court. Eventually, though, either the state or federal supreme court may hear the case and then there’s no one left to appeal to.
Can you give us an example, I think you (and other comments) may be conflating a few things that are a little different.
Judges can’t block bills — bills are non-binding “drafts” that are passed by legislature, and become laws. What I think you may be thinking of is a judge the legislature has called to testify on a bill saying that the bill would be illegal, and then the legislature blocks the bill based on their advice. That happens very often. Or, sometimes judges do rule laws unconstitutional and can prevent enforcing them, but that’s actually sort of rare
In the case of judges stopping laws, that’s not just the judge — there needs to be a cause of action, and someone suing the government or suing someone else and invoking that law. They can’t go around overturning decisions or laws because they want to, but if it comes up and is important to their decision they sometimes have to
In the United States, we have a constitution. The constitution is the supreme law of the land. For it to be modified requires both houses of congress to approve by 2/3 majority, the president has to agree, and 3/4 of the states have to ratify it. It has only been modified 27 times (maybe 28, but that is another topic).
The constitution lists what the government “can” do, not what it “cannot” do. This is why we are a free country, the government cannot do anything not listed in the constitution.
Now, if congress or a state passes a law that does something the constitution does not permit, a court can decide to nullify all or part of that law by declaring it unconstitutional. They do not do this on their own, they require a person or group who has been harmed by the change to make their case. Both side get to argue, and there are three levels of appeals. It is never one judge who permanently blocks a law, there is a carful process.
Now when you read in the news that a judge blocks a law, it is temporary, and even that temporary injunction can be appealed–even before the case goes to trial.
It is called Constitutional Review. It started back in the 19th century when Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the Supreme Court opinion for *Marbury v. Madison*. In that decision, Marshall explained how the Constitution limited the powers of the federal government to those enumerated within the Constitution. So any law created by Congress or act by the President that violated the Constitution could not be enforced because the Constitution is the source of the federal government’s power. Kind of like how you can’t use an electrical plug to power your breaker box. It just don’t work.
*Marbury* had to determine who should stop a government action when it violates the Constitution. Interpreting the law is what courts do so naturally it was determined that this includes reviewing whether a law violates the Constitution. Thus the courts, starting from a single district court judge, has the power of Constitutional Review.
Historically this was limited to the federal government. States could still make laws that didn’t comport with the Constitution but state courts could hold state governments to state constitutions. When the 14th Amendment was ratified state governments were mostly “incorporated” to have to follow the Constitution as well.
I’m assuming you mean America.
And they do and they don’t. Yes a judge can say “I’m not applying that law.” Or more commonly “That’s not how *I interpret* that law.”
Well typically when this happens it’s at the state level. Each state has a certain number of districts with a certain number of judges. This is 99% of judges. The majority of minor decision making. Each state decides how many districts and judges it has, although most like to do it by county/parish. And that is annoying to keep track of. So just know that the state level is the lowest level. If a judge there makes a questionable decision it can be appealed. In this situation it now becomes a federal issue. And goes to the court of appeals.
There are 94 appellate courts in the USA. they’re like the lowest level of federal court. And exist pretty much solely to deal with issues in state courts. If the appellate judge agrees the state judges decision was iffy, they can take the case or reject it and reaffirm the decision of the previous judge. Sometimes you get goofy stuff like they agree with the decision but not the why so they retread the same case to be careful about *how* they set case precedent. But that’s a whole other issue.
If the appellate court comes to a weird answer it can be appealed again, this time to a circuit court. Of which there are 13. This is about as high a judge can rise without being buddy buddy with the president, and the untimely demise of a supreme court justice. Anyway these guys are *almost* the law of the land. And it’s pretty rare cases get to them. If they do it’s either a seriously messed up situation, or some poor logic and decision making by colleagues lower on the totem pole. If they overturn a decision it’s pretty hard to enforce those laws in those situations.
Finally there’s the supreme court. It’s very rare cases get to them. They are hand picked by the president whenever there’s a vacancy. They serve for life and cannot be removed from office. Ultimately they are beholden to no one. And that’s the point. They can make decisions without it impacting their future career, because they’ve already gone as far as they can in their career. There is no next step you need to please people to make. So they’re meant to be decisive and not always popular. They decide how laws are interpreted and enforced.
Anytime a court makes a ruling (technically anytime although you’ll find conflicting rulings among state level rulings, so this mostly applies to appellate and higher) that sets “case precedent” meaning the issue has been decided. Say an appelate judge says “you’re *not* going to be punished for selling weed” it would be insane for any state judge to oppose that. The precedent has been set by a higher court. So selling weed would effectively become legal, even if it’s not legal by law. This is technically what’s been going on with Roe V Wade the last 40 years. Abortion has no federal legal status in the USA. It’s not legal. It’s not illegal. The federal government is fine leaving that issue to each state. However Roe V Wade went to the supreme court. Meaning the case precedent applied to the whole country. And it was decided. Women have the right to an abortion. But no one ever bothered to make it law. So when the supreme court became dominantly the *other* side of the political spectrum they were free to overturn their own prior ruling. So now it’s back to each state deciding their own rules on the subject. I haven’t heard of any cases yet, but I expect we’ll see some appellate and circuit rulings on the topic in the next few years.
Laws have a hierarchy that they must follow, that is constitutional law overrides lower laws.
So for example if the constitution says “the state can’t make a law that prevents people from criticizing the president”, and then a city council somewhere tries making a law that says “Everyone who criticizes the president is to be hanged”, people will take that to court and a judge has to rule whether or not that second law is compatible with the first.
If they aren’t compatible, the judge has to be able to tell which one has priority, and then the other one is “blocked”.
Otherwise you’d have ridiculous situations like a city council in montana is making laws that are against the constitution and are applicable only in california.
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