My claim is that there is nothing in your constitution or legal set up which establishes anything like a "legislating from the bench" objection. I haven't faile

My claim is that there is nothing in your constitution or legal set up which establishes anything like a "legislating from the bench" objection. I haven't failed to understand your system, I am claiming, there is nothing present in it to understand. The constitution itself places a court as its interpretive body: the power of the constitution is exercised by judges, explicitly mandated to interpret it. Judicial power isn't some "secondary" feature over which congress is meant to preside. It is the primary mechanism of the constitutional order itself. The american legal order is established, maintained and exercised by the judiciary. There is a mistaken view that Congress as a democratic body has more "legitimacy" and therefore that others exercising power are overstepping their mark. But the american constitution is not democratic, and has no high regard for democracy as the principle authorising source of power. The founders were far more concerned to rest power in as narrow hands as possible, hence the supreme court and hence the electoral college. There is no such thing as "legislating from the bench" -- this is just judges exercising their constitutional role.