Abstract
When assessing courts in a democratic regime, we must begin by asking substantial questions about what it means for any democratic nation to allocate such important functions to an often unelected branch of government. Courts must fit within a democracy, not democracies within a judicial system. This Essay identifies two fundamental predicates of democratic rule—efficacy and equality—and examines the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in light of both of those key categories, finding that its recent decisions have been consistently undermining both. These observations on the United States Supreme Court are prefaced by overviews of the scholarly literature regarding the role of courts in a variety of regime types, including nations in the process of democratic erosion like the United States, as well as consolidated regimes of both the authoritarian and democratic varieties.
Recommended Citation
Jenny Breen,
Democracy’s Fundamentals: Efficacy, Equality, and the Supreme Court,
104 Neb. L. Rev. 33
(2025).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nlr/vol104/iss1/4