The United States Government is
divided into three branches each of which functions together to complement the
other in a “check-and-balance” system. The Executive branch of government is
the highest office of the US government, which constitutes the seat of the US
Presidency, which is a form of aristocracy form of leadership that was
practiced in some European countries at the time the “Founding Fathers” were
drafting the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This branch of
government is responsible for enforcing the laws of the country that the
Legislature makes and does not have the constitution rights to make laws of its
own or rather interpret laws that the legislature makes. The Judiciary branch
of government is responsible for interpreting the laws and this branch also serves
as an eye on the president’s actions and activities. Each branch of government in
the US is a distinct organ that can function separately of the other in
completing the whole.
In the case of Medellin v. Texas,
the President does not have the
constitutional right to demand states to adhere to the World Court ruling. The Judiciary
branch is the branch of government that must be free of external influence of
the other branches of government, if it should really be impartial and “blind”
in the eyes of the beholder. The President is the highest person in the
government, but that does not give him the right to make laws or demand the
court of what it is expected to do. The President of the United States has the
legitimate and constitutional rights to make treaty with other countries about
issues of international policy in the interest of the United States, but his ability
to turn international treaty into laws within the borders of the United States
is illegitimate and unconstitutional.
Laws made outside of the parameters
of the Unites States that is contradictory to the laws of any states of the US
cannot be binding. States have the right to adopt anything they feel are right
for its people and within the frameworks of the US constitution as well as the
individual states, and it also avoid laws that infringes on the constitution.
In the specific case involving Medellin vs. Texas in which the court in Texas
ruled against Medellin for murder and also failing to announce his reliance on
the Vienna Convention in which the World Court ruled that the Texas Court must
review their decision of the case involving Medellin.
The traditional court procedures in
the United States must be free from the influences of international treaty that
the other branches of government make. The
President does not have the right to enforce international treaties with other
nations or institutions as binding on the US court to be obliged to obey said
treaties as laws. According to the argument supported by most of the Justices
that the obligations largely depended on the diplomatic processes of member
states that signed to the Vienna Convention and did not require the court
systems to enforced it. Justice Roberts furthered deliberated on the premise
upon which the Founding Fathers established the court system which means that “procedures
that must be followed before Federal Laws can be created under the Constitution
— vesting that decision in the political branches, subject to checks and
balances.” He further states that the President handing over the task of the
Judiciary to determine if an international treaty becomes laws that will be
binding on the country does not only portray the Judiciary branch of government
the authority to interpret laws, but to also make laws which in a sense is
unconstitutional and wasn’t the intent of the Framers. This would also
complicate the legal systems and there will not be transparencies as each branch
will soon be making, enforcing and interpreting the laws and if this situation
exists, it wouldn’t be different from anarchism.
In regards to whether the president
has the power to have the judiciary branch to make international treaties
binding on the US is a matter that must be determine through the legal process
of law through the Congress or master-minded in the Constitution itself and
that the President’s authority does not fit in that respect. The President does
not have the authority or power to make international treaties a binding
domestic law of the United States. If a particular treaty is proposed by the President
to Congress to be considered as a domestic law of the country, the decision
must stem from Congress or it must have been stated and supported by the
Constitution.
Reference Story can be accessed at: http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2008/03/states-win-over.html
Retrieved: 03/15/2008.
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