Judicial Self Restraint and Activism in Supreme Court Cases

Supreme Court opinions and dissents are essentially reflections of judicial self-restraint or judicial activism. Generally, the Supreme Court reflects judicial self-restraint or judicial activism through the use of the doctrine of standing in majority opinions and in dissenting opinions respectively. This implies that judicial self-restraint and judicial activism are terms in current legal language that describe opposite approaches that are taken by judges to interpret various issues relating to a case (Pinelli, p.31). In this instance, judges interpret the meaning of words and the intentions of their authors in a manner that is considered adequate in resolving a case. Judicial self-restraint and judicial activism are evident in the opinions and dissents of Supreme Court cases such as Allen v. Wright, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, and Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Concepts of Judicial Self-Restraint and Judicial Activism

Generally, judicial self-restraint and judicial activism are concepts that have emerged in the legal field because of the two contradictory poles of opinion regarding the accurate institutional role of the Supreme Court and constitutional interpretation process (Cox, p.121). Judicial activism is the view of the Supreme Court as a political body that is accurately involved in pursuing policy goals and objectives. However, the Court is limited by jurisdictional rules and the custom of covering judicial policymaking in legal profession concepts. Based on this view of the Court's judicial function, it can be argued that the Supreme Court politicizes constitutional interpretation process. Judicial activism is based on the belief that law in only policy and judges should focus on developing the good society depending on their own vision.

On the contrary, judicial self-restraint is a limited view of nature of judicial process that stresses at least one of four major considerations. First, judicial self-restraint stresses values of self-government and majority rule through which the Supreme Court enforces its social, political, and economic views through due process and equal protection. Secondly, judicial self-restraint highlights the values of the federal system that promotes decentralized decision making across state and local governments, which provide the basis for creation of state laws and local laws. Third, judicial self-restraint highlights precedents and other sources of law as accumulated body of wisdom. Fourth, judicial self-restraint emphasizes the need to ensure the effectiveness of decisions of an institution that is mandated with implementing constitutional limitations against executive and legislative branches that are popularly elected.

Judicial Self-Restraint and Activism in Allen v. Wright and Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

As previously mentioned, Allen v. Wright and Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife are examples of cases where judicial self-restrain and judicial activism was use in majority opinions and dissenting opinions respectively. In both cases, the Supreme Court utilized the doctrine of standing as the basis for supporting judicial self-restraint in majority opinions and endorsing judicial activism in dissenting opinions. Even though the doctrine of standing has been increasingly controversial in the recent past, it is an essential and inseparable concept in the modern legal proceedings.

According to Scalia, the doctrine of standing is an essential and inseparable element of the principle of separation of powers (p.881). Consequently, any disregard of this doctrine inevitably generates an overjudicialization of self-governance processes. The doctrine of standing, which is also commonly referred to as standing to sue, is considered as a court-created concept or theory that is used to determine the ability of the court to hear a certain federal lawsuit. In this case, the plaintiff is held responsible to prove his/her standing to sue and the court determines whether it has jurisdiction to hear and determine the specific lawsuit. Since it is a court-created doctrine, standing to sue does not have any legislative support or regulation, which has contributed to numerous controversies.

In Allen v. Wright, the Court's majority opinions used the doctrine of standing to support judicial self-restraint by arguing on the premise of "case or controversy" requirement of Article III of the Constitution. In this case, the majority opinions supported judicial self-restraint by examining the facts of the case relative to their ability to meet the case or controversy requirement. To this extent, the Court basically examined whether the plaintiff alleged personal injury was fairly traceable to the alleged unlawful conduct of the defendant and whether the personal injury was likely to be redressed or resolved by granting the requested relief. Based on examination of these factors, the Court's majority opinions found that judicial role was limited in the case because of failure of claim of injury, lack of traceability, and lack of judicial remedy. As a result, the Supreme Court could not speculate regarding policy outcomes of remedies and could not exercise executive power.

The dissenting opinions applied the same criteria to endorse judicial activism on the premise that the doctrine was used to deny the plaintiffs full consideration of their claims based on their merits. To this extent, the Court primarily focused on the notion of separation of powers rather than the merits of the case. Moreover, the Court depended on generalities regarding the tripartite system of governance and failed to utilize common sense, which supports effectiveness of judicial remedy.

In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, the Court's majority opinions supported judicial self-reliant by arguing that respondents in the case were responsible for demonstrating standing through establishing an actual or concrete injury they suffered. This would require presenting an affidavit and other evidence or specific facts in support of their claim. Following an analysis of case facts, the respondents failed to demonstrate standing since the focus of the Government action or inaction, which was opposed by respondents, targeted third-parties instead of the respondents. Therefore, the injury was relatively speculative and the claims did not follow standing rules and judicial limits that citizen-suits are required to comply with. However, the dissenting opinions in this case endorsed judicial activism on the premise that there were genuine issues raised by respondents and the Court's language in rejecting standing for injuries. Therefore, there was no need to prove an actual or imminent injury for standing since the genuine issues were reasonable.