I was wondering about this when the California Supreme Court gave its decision on gay marriage. It seems clear that they had the power to overturn the amendment to the California constitution, presumably on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, ie against their interpretation of the US Constitution.
Does SCOTUS have that same power to reject Amendments to the Constitution passed by the requisite majority of states? Has it ever done so? I’m trying to assess just how powerful the Supreme Court is and if its decisions could be maintained against the will of the majority and if they ever had been.
A part of the US Constitution would only be invalid if it is inconsistent with another part – and if two parts are inconsistent like that, then one way of resolving the problem is to go with the part enacted later. So, if it were ever asked to do so, the SCOTUS could declare the Eighteenth Amendment now invalid, since it is inconsistent with the Twenty-First Amendment (which repealed it).
I doubt if there’s any other reason why an amendment could be invalid.
The question before the California Supreme Court wasn’t whether the anti-gay marriage amendment violated the US Constitution. The question was whether the anti-gay marriage amendment was properly adopted, according to the rules the California constitution has for amending the constitution.
There is some scholarship that suggests that some types of Amendment would be so antithetical to the Constitutional structure that there would be no way to incorporate them, but that’s all very rarefied. And of course, the Court might read an Amendment in a way very different than it was understood at the time of its passage. But that’s a danger of courts with all types of law, not just amendments. But the short answer is no – when the Court treats constitutional questions, it is considering whether X law or Y set of facts is consonat with the Constitution. So if the polity changes the Constitution, then the Court is bound to the new as it once was to the old.
As Exapno and Captain Amazing note, the issue before the California court was whether Prop. 8 was validly enacted. Certainly the Supreme Court could and would consider those types of arguments about Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. But that’s not a matter of “overturning” an Amendment – it’s just recognizing whether something that purports to be an amendment really is one because it was legally enacted, or if it’s just a piece of paper. And again, courts do this with regular laws all the time – they’re bound by what the law is, but for something to be a valid law at all, it has to be passed according to the applicable procedures.
This is the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution:
The supreme court has no power to overturn it – assuming it was so foolish as to want to!
However, look at the following:
This is the joint resolution adopting the Thirteenth Amendment and proposing it to the states for ratification. Like any other measure enacted by Congress, it is subject to the constitutional and other provisions for enactment – and that is at least in principle reviewable by the Court. A proposed amendment not properly enacted by Congress or proprly ratified is not an effective amendment, and no part (at least yet) of the Constitution.
Constitution exists at time point 1
Statute is written at time point 2
statute is enforced in district courts at time point 3
no challenges are brought questioning the statute’s constitutionality (time 4)
statute comes up in supreme court proceeding, court decides statute is unconstitutional and thus the law is not binding (time 5)
at some point, the unconstitutional statute was law.
This could’ve been an issue with the Equal Rights Amendment if it ever managed to get enough states to ratify it. Several state legislatures later rescinded their ratifications while it was still pending; that never happened before so there’s no precedent on whether it’s allowed or not.
Does the S.Ct. have the authority to overturn a constitutional amendment? No, for all the reasons specified above.
Does the S.Ct. have the power to do so in practice? Yes. It can issue a ruling that eviscerates an amendment of any legal meaning, and that ruling will be final and unappealable. The example of this is the Slaughterhouse Cases opinion, which in practical terms read nearly all meaning out of the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment.
That’s not exactly true. The Constitution cannot invalidate itself. If one section says one thing, and another something else, they must both be taken together as logic and judicial history permit. In the case of the repealed amendment, it is indeed no longer valid, but that is not a contradiction: the 18th Amendment properly no longer exists and is officially removed from the document (although often noted).
It may be possible that the US Supreme Court could follow its Indian counterpart and declare that any amendment that went againts thebasic structure of the constitution would be invalid.
Unlikelyt, but there is precedent from at one common law country.
Hasn’t this part of his question been overlooked? My guess is that decisions can be maintained against the will of the majority and that they have been. (Minority rights) But I will defer to a response by someone better schooled in law.
Read in context, Aldoboronti is referring to the majority of states - i.e. the states that have ratified a particular constitutiona amendment which the SC is rejecting or nullifying.
Since the SC has never attempted to do this, Aldoboronti’s question has never arisen in practice. The only way the SC can set an amendment entirely at nought is by finding that it hasn;'t been properly passed. In that case, if the states wanted to, they could pass it again, taking care to do the job properly this time.
Interesting question. The answer is going to be generally “no”, the USSC cannot rule an amendment to the US Constitution to be unconstitutional, which they can do with a statute. However, there are exceptions. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US constitution are generally ignored, the decisions interpreting them are so much double talk. They have been essentially overturned by justices who would rather not be bothered with the provisions of them that they do not like. Presumably this can be done again. All the Court has to do is pretend that the words mean something else.
There is another category where the USSC could legitimately overturn a normally passed constitutional amendment: if the states tried to apportion the power in the US Senate in any way other than two Senators from each state, each with a full vote, then it would violate the US Constitution, because the normal procedure to pass constitutional amendments is specifically prohibited by the US Constitution when screwing with the power of a State in the Senate.
