Comments | rev_tobias: Constitution 1, Patriot Act 0

rev_tobias

Constitution 1, Patriot Act 0

Sep 27, 2007 20:51

According to this CBS story, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional.

[Judge Aiken] said that by asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney General's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation what would deprive it ( Read more... )

news, politics

Comments 5

kmg_365 September 27 2007, 19:24:12 UTC

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on tv, but if the administration wanted to, I suppose they could petition the SC to hear the case.

Doesn't mean that the SC would acquiesce to their request. ;-)

dreagoddess September 28 2007, 20:44:56 UTC

Eh, something like this, SCOTUS would probably pick it up. But we're not to that step yet ( ... )

rev_tobias September 28 2007, 22:58:37 UTC

There are a ton of federal districts around the country, so one ruling isn't a big deal, honestly.

Okay, this is the part I don't get. Please explain. I thought anything "federal" means "applicable across state borders throughout the US". So a Federal Court does not speak for the whole Federal Judicative bus just for a certain (I surmise geographcally defined) part of it? Is SCOTUS the only court in the US whose rulings really apply to all of the USA?

You see, in Germany, anything on the Federal level (or "Bundes-"whatever) automatically overrules its state level ("Landes-") counterpart. So if a Landesgericht, or State Court, in Germany, made a decision like this, it would - if challenged - escalate to a Bundesgericht (Federal Court) and from there to the Bundesverfassungsgericht ("Constitution Court", a special court whose job is to ensure that the constitution is upheld above anything else - I think (but am not 100% sure) this is the job of SCOTUS in the USA ( ... )

dreagoddess September 29 2007, 01:08:41 UTC

You're kind of right. :) Basically, we have a dual system, with the federal and state courts each being supreme in their own ways. Federal courts can't interfere in state law unless it impacts with the US constitution. (Which this does, since it declared a law unconstitutional.) So the state court can't just say, "Nope, we disagree, it's constitutional ( ... )

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