ABSTRACT
The concerns connected to the democratic dimension do not forbid the Court from making policy or from striking down the handiwork of the elected branches. Charles Epp claims the undemocratic nature of judicial decision-making is overstated. In the areas of civil rights and civil liberties, Epp maintains that Supreme Court policymaking is not strictly a top-down creation of the justices; rather, the rights revolution was largely a function of a bottom-up phenomenon. Proponents of democratic theory say that it is better to have a majority make a mistake than to have courts substituting their judgment for the elected officials. The argument that the Court is undemocratic is also based on the comparative premise that the other branches of government are democratic. The problems in the American political system have created a policy vacuum that the judiciary often tries to fill.
