Friday February 3, 2012









issues

Judicial Branch

The Judicial Branch is the only wing of government not directly elected by the populace. Instead of being elected, members of the Judicial Branch are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

The head office of the American Judiciary is the United States Supreme Court. The Court is composed of 9 judges. There are no term limits to being a Supreme Court judge. A judge will leave office upon retirement or death, with death usually following closely upon retirement.

The Supreme Court is the highest of several federal courts where cases and appeals are brought before federal judges. These lower federal courts are arranged around the nation geographically. There are also 13 United States courts of appeals.

The main duty of the Judicial Branch is to interpret the Constitution as it applies to the laws of the nation. For instance, if Congress were to pass a law prohibiting equal protection under the law or refusing the right to assemble peaceably, the Supreme Court would be where Americans could challenge the Constitutional nature of that law.

It is imperative to keep the Judicial Branch in our prayers as they use ethical and moral standards to interpret America’s Constitution as it applies to her modern laws.

Featured Member of the Judicial Branch for Prayer

PrayFocusJudicialJustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg was born in March 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. She attended James Madison High School, and graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After receiving that degree she enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she was one of only nine women in a class of more than five hundred. She later transferred to Columbia Law School where she earned her Bachelor of Laws degree. She has since been awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Willamette University and Princeton University.

Justice Ginsburg was a professor of law at Rutgers University for nine years, and then she taught at Columbia, where she became the first tenured woman professor. She co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, and a year later became the ACLU’s General Counsel.

President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and she served there for 13 years until joining the Supreme Court. It was President Bill Clinton who nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and within a few months she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2009, Forbes magazine named her among the 100 Most Powerful Women.

Justice Ginsburg is the widow of the late Martin Ginsburg who died in 2010. They have two children. She is Jewish.

IN THE NEWS: On her visit to Egypt, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is scheduled to meet with senior court officials, the head of the High Elections Commission and Egypt’s Grand Muffti. Her visit follows Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner who went to Cairo last week. The visits coincide with the opening of Egypt’s Parliament and the commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the start of the Egyptian Revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood group overwhelmingly won the parliamentary election.



US Supreme Court Seal


The Court

Judicial Branch Prayer Needs

PRAY FOR OUR JUDICIARY

The California Supreme Court upheld legislation that ended a roughly 60-year-old program intended to combat urban blight. As a result, more than 40 redevelopment agencies have closed, and cities are scrambling to find an alternative.

Multiple “friend of the court” briefs have been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of free speech for students and parents in what has become known as the “Candy Cane Case,” about religious symbols of the candy.

Pray for wisdom for the members of the Courts from local levels up to the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.