Decision-Making in a Democracy : The Supreme Court as a National Policy-Maker

TLDR: The Supreme Court of the United States is also a political institution, an institution that is to say, for arriving at decisions on controversial questions of national policy, and it is this role that gives rise to the problem of the Court's existence in a political system ordinarily held to be democratic.

Abstract: Considered as a political system, democracy is a set of basic procedures for arriving at decisions. To Consider the Supreme Court of the United States Strictly as a legal institution is to underestimate its significance in the American political system. For it is also a political institution, an institution, that is to say, for arriving at decisions on controversial questions of national policy. Court must choose among controversial alternatives of public policy by appealing to at least some criteria of acceptability on questions of fact and value that cannot be found in or deduced from precedent, statute, and Constitution. It is in this sense that the Court is a national policy-maker, and it is this role that gives rise to the problem of the Court's existence in a political system ordinarily held to be democratic. Justices are typically men who, prior to appointment, have engaged in public life and have committed themselves publicly on the great questions of the day.