Currently, congress can pass any law they want, constitutional or not, and unless you can show personal damages, you cannot challenge it.
This is because the courts have declared they don't have time.
To clean up our laws, including the lack of expiration dates on outdated laws, and to remove absurdly unconstitutional provisions and reactionary moments of confusion, there should be a special court for this purpose.
If the court rules it unconstitutional, there can still be an appeal to the original court system because there is now standing.
The number of unconstitutional laws on the books is more than an inconvenience. They represent a vulnerability to arrest on improper grounds as a pretense.
Comments (7)
It's not called a legislature for nothing -- they write them, and have the sole power of removing them from the books.
Even IF the courts nullify them, they remain on the books.
Why not run for Congress on this idea, and be the change you'd like to see?
Can't run for Congress. I'm ornery and unlikable. :)
They don't have to be removed, they need a stay issued against them. Invalidated as it were.
They should remain for evidence of bad behavior in congress and the senate.
It should not be a special court: it should be the Supreme Court. If laws cannot be challenged without damages, that is the problem, and should be addressed directly.
I'm with shawn.t.rutledge. If you do think the law is unconstitutional, start a grass roots movement to remove it. Otherwise, let the system work as it was intended.
The federal statutes have 4,500 + pieces of legislation with criminal penalties attached.
Most of these are unconstitutional police powers that belong to the states.
500 more per decade are being added.
There is no method in the system to do battle against these until you are actually arrested.
At one point, you could challenge them, and the Supreme Courts ruled that there is no time, so tough.
That currently is the system.
I have to say that letting that work is against our interest.
sobi, I agree that it should be possible to challenge legislation as being unconstitutional, with or without actual damages.
The president is sworn to uphold the constitution too. And he has to sign or veto every new piece of legislation. So I guess it's good the court is still so independent in their decisions, as intended. If there was to be some new court for that purpose, by what mechanism do you think this new court would be isolated from big-time politics, would not be subject to corruption or the influence of vested interest? What is the mechanism that's supposed to keep the Supreme Court "clean" and how do you think that could be applied to the new court as well? Are you sure it would be an improvement?
We have a variety of smaller courts, and separate courts that operate to keep the system fluid.
Small claims, for example, I think represents a good model.
In small claims, if a plaintiff brings suit and fails, then there is no appeal. It ends there.
If a defendant is sued, and looses, they can appeal to the normal court system.
This provides the screen against frivolous challenges that the courts want without barricading the population from reducing their vulnerability to arrest on an unconstitutional charge or pretense.
Like any other court system, precedent can also be taken into account to keep it clean, though as in the regular system, precedent is not a bar to new challenge based on new grounds.
Convenience is an entirely insufficient defense against hearing a citizens claim to be heard when a constitutional right is infringed.
A constitutional right is infringed when a citizen is vulnerable to arrest for employing it.