Judicial Branch

In what way do the other branches check the power of the Judicial branch?
Both the Legislative and the Executive branches exert checks on the power of the Judicial branch. The Executive branch has the power to pardon any person under trial for a crime. This branch can also nominate Supreme Court justices. The Senate must approve this nomination. The House of Representatives can impeach a justice. Congress can also set up lower courts, and amend the Constitution, which would change the way the Supreme Court judges things.

Is this branch more or less powerful than the other two?
I think it is not, because the only absolute power it has is to declare an action or a law unconstitutional. This is called judicial review. And even this power can be checked. If Congress changes the Constitution, what is constitutional also changes. The Executive branch has the power to decide who is on the Supreme Court, which could change the way they interpret the Constitution. The Executive branch can also give pardons to defendants, no matter what the court thinks of them. Some people disagree with me on this one. One big question that comes up when discussing the power of this branch is whether or not the justices on the Supreme Court should serve life sentence...I mean terms. Life terms. Yeah, that's what I meant. ...Moving on. The founders of the country thought that allowing the justices to serve life terms would help them to do their jobs by taking away the stress of "Oh, if I say this is Constitutional, people won't like it and they won't elect me again". I happen to agree with this opinion. But there are some people who think that justices should not serve life terms. One of their reasons might be that if one set of judges approves something, that's fine, but eventually with no change, they might get biased a certain way and make unfair decisions. I don't think this argument is very realistic, because one of the things that a Supreme Court justice should be is open minded. They should be able to see both sides of an argument, and not just decide something because it fits with what their friends believe.