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how is this not tantamount to a constitutional amendment to curtail the supreme court's legal authority like this
by ptah 7y ago
how is this not tantamount to a constitutional amendment to curtail the supreme court's legal authority like this
- rolltiide 7y agoSupreme Court rules on particular laws and outcomes of nuanced regulations, and in this with patents it has ruled on vague administrative procedures that the patent office promulgated which happened without legislative guidance. That means Congress can always just change the law. The Supreme Court didn't say "gene patents are unconstitutional" they said "patents under this x,y,z regulation don't fit x,y,z part of the constitution being argued, we agree/disagree with the lower court". So Congress changes x,y,z regulation with a,b,c law to provide clarity, and it may create the same outcome as before, amongst other outcomes.
- ptah 7y agoWhat I mean is, they are proposing a law that contradicts a supreme court ruling, which seems unconstitutional
- rolltiide 7y agoI see what you are saying, but it isn't so binary. If the Supreme Court ruled against the merits of a specific law that Congress passed, then sure Congress could not make another law to overrule it (well it would be immediately stayed by the courts). Here the Supreme Court ruled against an OUTCOME of a law that doesn't exist. They ruled against interpretations of a patchwork of nuanced regulations which never had any legislative guidance, which resulted in the aggrieved party not being able to enforce their gene patent alongside the patent examiners not approving any more of them. Congress is now ending this mess by providing that missing legislative guidance.
- Retra 7y agoThe constitution provides a framework for this contradiction. + Congress has the power to propose law. + The court has the 'checking' power to rule on the law. + Congress has the 'checking' power to change the law to invalidate that ruling. + The court has the 'checking' power to rule a law unconstitutional. + Congress has the 'checking' power to change the constitution to invalidate that ruling. Congress always has the power to override the court.
- rolltiide 7y agore-reading this whole thread, and the ways that multiple other people already explained it including myself, I don't think grandparent OP is going to get it.
- UncleEntity 7y ago> they are proposing a law that contradicts a supreme court ruling They are proposing a law that directly addresses a Supreme Court interpretation of existing law. Happens often, Supreme Court says law X doesn't mean Y and if you want it to mean that then rewrite it to say so.
- jkaplowitz 7y agoThe Supreme Court is not always ruling on the Constitution. When they rule on a matter of statutory interpretation, the bits of federal common law that still exist today, or other federal grounds for a decision that aren't about the Constitution, an Act of Congress is plenty sufficient to change that by eliminating or modifying the basis for the decision.