POLI 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Ideal Point, Tolerance Interval, Judicial Independence
28 Sep 2014
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Document Summary
Constraints on the constitutional court: can come from different actors, public/opposition not represented by definition in government can constrain the constitutional courts by simply thinking badly of them. If the public doesn"t care, the cc becomes more vulnerable. When the public has constitutional complaint options and does not use the court often, trying to affect change through other institutional channels, it constrains the power of the courts because they become marginalized. They can pack the court trying to pass an amendment to increase/decrease justices so that the ones you want are on the court: engineer a friendly majority in the courts. Incumbents can suspend the constitutional court: most intrusive decision they could make, have threatened to close the court in some countries when they don"t get what they want. Formal institutions: formal institutions are not full-proof protection from the influence of an incumbent. Higher the salience, the more interest different actors have: more likely that there may be interference.
