Angelina Chu – Article 3, Section 1 (Judicial Branch)

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Some framers of the Constitution believed that the federal government could not be successful without a judicial system to enforce such laws. This is rooted in the issues of the Articles of Confederation (1777) due to a weak central government, leading to a lack of unity among the states. One of the main flaws of the Articles was that it failed to enforce the laws that it preached. The Constitution strives to instill the unity that the Articles lacked by enforcing its unifying principles through the judicial system.
The judicial system is one of the three branches of the United States government. The common interpretation of Article 3 is that it unifies the states under one judicial system and Supreme Court.

In particular, Section 1 of Article 3 establishes this Supreme Court as the highest court in the judicial system, with inferior courts established by Congress when necessary. It also strives to enforce the integrity of the judicial system by stating that judges may keep such positions for the rest of their lives as long as they maintain “good behavior.” By instilling the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court, Section 1 grants judges the ability to interpret the law. This strengthens the federal government as the Judicial branch can review governmental affairs, helping to check and balance the other two branches of government.

Although this interpretation of Article 3, Section 1 may be common, historical scholars have diverged in their understandings of the section. In Not Your Founding Fathers’ Judiciary, scholar David A. Strauss argues that the judicial system does not function in the way the founding fathers intended, with state courts taking on more importance than the Supreme Court. Although Section 1 puts emphasis on how the states are united under one Supreme Court, Strauss conveys that with the increasing number of crimes today, most cases do not have a chance to make it to the Supreme Court, with justice being carried out in state courts instead. On the other hand, academic Richard W. Garnett conveyed his argument in the article The “Judicial Power” and the Power of Judicial Review where he expresses the importance of judicial review, the court’s power to interpret and enforce the law.

Through its ability to deem governmental actions constitutional, Garnett presents that the judicial branch checks and balances the Executive and Legislative branches and thereby upholds the Constitution. The importance of judicial review is also demonstrated in Supreme Court Case Marbury v. Madison of 1803, which established judicial review, legitimatizing the Supreme Court’s right to rule laws as constitutional.
As Garnett highlights, Section 1’s establishment of the Supreme Court and judicial review helps to check and balance the other branches of the government.

This idea can be traced back to Montesquieu’s Enlightenment philosophy of the separation of powers. As Montesquieu details in his 1748 work, The Spirit of Laws, he proposes that the government must not be concentrated and instead split up into separate branches, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, to check and balance the others, preventing tyranny and abuse of power. Article 3, the judicial branch, plays an imperative role in carrying out the separation of powers, upholding the integrity of the Constitution. Although the judicial system is a necessity to the Constitution, one possible amendment would be to classify “good behavior.” As behaving without “good behavior” is the only condition under which a judge would no longer be deemed fit for the job, defining what such behavior is would warrant that all judges are held to a specific, uniform standard and therefore ensure the Constitution’s integrity.

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