ABSTRACT
‘We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.’ So said Charles Evan Hughes, politician and jurist, and later to become chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. His perceptive remark succinctly identifies the vital connection between the American political system and the American judiciary. The Supreme Court is the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution and that means it has a profound impact upon politics as well as upon law. In this chapter we will examine how a court of law became a powerful political body and why judicial power is important but controversial in contemporary American politics.
