ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court plays a significant role in the American legal system as one of the three branches of federal government, serving as a “national policy-maker” and the final instance in all criminal, civil, and constitutional cases. As a common law court, it creates binding legal norms and exercises the power of judicial review, having the potential to interpret the constitution and create constitutional precedents. The core idea of the common law system, rooted in case-based legal reasoning, suggests that the Court strongly relies on its own earlier decisions. However, the analysis of its recent jurisprudence proves a diminishing adherence to former precedents on the part of the justices, which may be caused by the impact of ideology on their adjudications. On the other hand, the justices tend to refer to the national rather than international adjudication, strengthening the meaning of earlier Courts’ judgments more often in the context of issues which relate to the justices’ ideologies. The chapter presents the theory and practice of the Court’s jurisprudence, defining the real character of its precedents and including their position in the hierarchy of sources of law, and the relations between the Court and lower judicial institutions, as well as the attitude of the justices towards international law. The analysis may lead to surprising conclusions, showing that the members of “the most active judicial institution in the world” are now more likely to focus on ideological and political factors instead of applying a concrete legal methodology in the process of establishing binding precedents.
