Should Judicial Activism Be Allowed

Judicial activism has had a profound effect on American society. Some examples of judicial activism include: Brown v. Board of Education—the 1954 Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that segregation was a violation of the Constitution and thus public schools were desegregated. Roe v. Wade is another example: this 1973 Supreme Court case made abortion legal. These examples fundamentally altered the character and fabric of society in ways that continue to have repercussions even to this very day.
The Constitution allows judges to play an activist role because ultimately the framers of the Constitution recognized how important and crucial the judiciary branch of the government would be. Just as the executive and the legislative branches can be activist, so too can and ought to be the judiciary branch. Judicial officials are often misrepresented as being impartial, but the reality is that they are not impartial but rather very partial—partial towards the law and the intention of the law as described in the Constitution (S.M., 2015). When it becomes clear through whatever tensions exist in society that the judiciary branch must take an active stance on an issue and clarify it for the public in the light of the what the Constitution says and intends, judicial activism can be witnessed—and that is perfectly in line with what the original framers of the Constitution had in mind. The idea of checks and balances is only really manifested when judges play an activist role. They must, in fact, play an activist role because otherwise the Constitution and the interpretation of it will simply fade away into nothingness because of a lack of presence, assertiveness, and activism on the part of those who occupy the benches and wield the gavels.
References
S.M. (2015). Those ‘activist’ judges. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/judicial-politics-0