By T N Ashok
WASHINGTON: A never-ending dispute is on. Who is most powerful among the five pillars of democracy? The government, the executive, the judiciary, the legislature and the media. We can bunch the government and the executive in one group. The other three branches are important as the government.
Who should have greater powers or should it be equally divided. First of all let’s understand the functions of the various branches. People elect their representatives to the Congress in the house and the senate. They in turn legislate on topics concerning the people.
When there is a dispute over what the legislator’s choice of bills, the judiciary intervenes on appeal from institutions and the people to interpret the law and decide what is right or wrong. So, there is a balance of power. And the media with its critique and analysis and surveys brings to the notice of the government how popular or unpopular the measures are.
In recent times the lines have got blurred between the powers of the branches under the constitution. The government has been accused of having a heft in making its own decisions it thinks right, the judiciary has been accused of exercising extra judicial powers, and the media has been accused of trial by the media even before courts can decide on the matter, media excesses have transgressed into judicial authority, making it difficult for people to accept judgments which are based on hard facts and reality and not on emotions. .
Both the Trump and the earlier Biden administration have been accused of being too strong or too weak in representing what they claimed to be in public interest. Both presidents adopted their own methods in implementing policies.
Biden might have used the processes to go through. Trump might have bypassed established protocols to get his legislations through out of sheer anxiety considering the wafer-thin majority i the Congress. 220 – 215 House and 57 – 43 senate. Trump believes in justice served quickly to the people who elected him. Nothing wrong with that. Due diligence, processes and protocols tend to delay justice, justice served has to be fast.
Executive orders are a way of demonstrating his heft to show he can do anything to get his job done riding roughshod over the Congress which has failed to check the unbridled powers of an elected chief executive of the country. So, the judiciary steps in and if it’s packed with representatives appointed by the chief executive, at least some of them, consider it their moral obligation to pay back to the CEO.
A 70-year-old law which held good on abortion being the first right of a woman over her reproductive rights was overturned by a supreme court judgement, packed with presidential appointees , in a Christian country where Catholics and protestants live side by side, in the belief of Christian orthodoxy that abortion was a cardinal sin. But the country has moved on from medieval times to modern days, we are now in the 21st century of innovations in science of Electric cars, wind energy and solar power.
The Republicans are conservatives as the grand old party – GOP – decided abortion is sin and must not be practiced by a woman. The peoples mandate on the issue was however different, it was the womans right to decide. Not that of the executive or the judiciary, but the voice was not clearly heard in the 2024 elections to the presidency when it became a secondary issue.
There are divisions in judgments when a bench has split votes, and the majority carries the day. The chief justice often intervenes with his comments and reservations, quite rightly so. The media is split – the genuine ones are sought to be reined with extra-terrestrial powers to ensure they are punished for expressing their views against the government or prevented from expressing unbiased views of governmental actions for fear of persecution. Some resort to freedom of expression and face the consequences, others meekly submit.
This is not a situation just prevalent in the US but is analogous to the whole world, even democracies such as in India, so-called democracy in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, throw up strong leaders who seek to function in an autocratic way to get things done on critical matters when a nation seems divided. Right or wrong, that only posterity will tell.
In the US the focus is now on deportation of aliens. Not aliens from Outerspace or Mars. But people who smuggle themselves into the US across the southern borders fleeing from regimes such as in Venezuela and from drug cartels in Mexico. Along with them sneak in some bad apples through coyotes. They indulge in drug running, gun peddling and flesh trade all of which spoils the atmosphere in a peaceful neighbourhood in a country.
Now the methodology used in deporting aliens is the subject matter of debate. Every regime, democratic or republican, do deport thousands of illegal immigrants. The democrats often follow the slower route adhering to established protocols which take a long time. But the Republicans want the faster route to end the bad apples and the bad atmosphere. Problem in forcible evictions is the collateral damage suffered by innocent asylum seekers and of late even permanent residents with valid certificates of their stay.
Herein comes in the judiciary when it decided to intervene in favour of the innocent. But the executive overrules the judiciary and other branches of the same step in to help. But the innocent suffers. Who cares? The ruling party feigns there’s collateral damage and the opposition think it’s too weak to fight for the oppressed, thus failing its constituents.
Democracies function in very funny ways in America. Judges are appointed by the President, at least to the Supreme Court, they are permanent, there’s no expiry date on their tenure, which gives them unbridled powers and there is no fear of termination. Biden sought to change this by prescribing timelines of tenures for judges, but he had to exit power.
For legislations to come into effect, it has to be passed by a bill in the congress of house of reps first and then the senate to become an act and to be signed off by the president to become the law of the land.
But, when this process is fraught with uncertainties of passage, or failure to pass, the president resorts to emergency powers or executive orders to implement his policies. Under debate is now the extraordinary tariffs imposed by President Trump in his wisdom to reign in countries living off the prosperity of America but giving nothing in return, payback time. Though the process may be right, but the methodology may not be in implementation which smacks of a bit of despotism or an authoritarian streak. At least scholars, ex bureaucrats, academicians and judges feel that way.
The media plays a great role in moulding public opinion. The judiciary acts as the policemen trying to control the executive. Do they do their jobs per consistence or swayed by the executive is the moot question. We are treading on dangerous grounds here.
The tariffs have been ruled as being ultravires of the constitution and questioned the right of a president to invoke emergency powers to unilaterally declare mind boggling tariffs on nations, though the objective might have been honest and genuine, but the established protocol was to go through the Congress. Only Congress had the right to decide and not the president unilaterally, a three federal bench on international trade in New York ruled.
But the court faces a restraining order, and its restraining order or stay has been stayed by an appeals court as government appealed that it would torpedo all sensitive negotiations being conducted by it with other countries. President Trump is rigid in his approach that other countries have been living of the economic benefits of a prospering US but sought to bring it down to enrich itself without being considerate in giving something in return. Through insensitive political regimes in the past considerable leeway has been given to the 27-bloc European Union, India, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam to mention a few. US has suffered mind boggling balance of trade with countries especially with China , its biggest trading partner.
Trump thinks India and China are the biggest beneficiaries of the American prosperity and yet both countries have been imposing extraordinarily high tariffs on the US. But the tariffs have made the imported goods costlier within America, especially medicines which are based on supplies from India and China. Nonessentials like toys have become exorbitant. American public is which bearing the brunt through high prices of even groceries when eggs soared to $9 a doz against $2-3 to a doz.
In Trump’s America, it is now a no holds battle between executive, judiciary, legislature and media. Every day brings uncertainties. The citizens of USA are getting reconciled to a life of stress, strain and uncertain future. (IPA Service)
Assam Chief Minister’s Arms Policy May Throw North-East Into Terrible Chaos 