Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Virginia

Re: Does the Supreme Court Have the Authority to Change the Constitution?

There are only two ways to actually change the Constitution -- by adding amendments or by calling a Constitutional convention. The Supreme Court has no say in either of these procedures, and neither do any other courts.

The Supreme Court's job is to *interpret* the constitution and say authoritatively what it does and does not allow. Politicians who don't like the results of this process often say that the justices are legislating from the bench; unfortunately, their rhetoric has led many Americans to believe that this is actually what happens.

The simple fact is that all documents are ambiguous to some degree. The Constitution is no exception to this rule. It is a remarkable document but it is only several pages long and it cannot offer clear answers to all possible legal questions that arise. It must be interpreted, and often different people will interpret it in different ways. When there is a dispute someone has to make the call, and the courts are assigned that role in our system of government.

Generally speaking, only one of the two major political parties tries to denigrate the courts by accusing them of grabbing legislative powers. (I don't want to say which one, but there are a lot of pictures of elephants at its conventions.) These politicians know that all court decisions require interpreting the law, but they also know that attaching a perjorative label to the decisions they don't like will win them more votes than would actually addressing the Court's reasoning.

What it all boils down to is that the difference between what they call "interpreting" and what they call "legislating" is simply the difference between decisions they like and decisions they don't.