Article by Christopher Osakwe
To the student of comparative judicial systems, the Supreme Court of the United States is a very peculiar institution indeed. In terms of its power and functions within the United States constitutional system, it has no comparable counterpart in the contemporary world. It readily stands out as a giant among supreme courts. So unique are its features that even comparative constitutionalists from other Western legal systems have considerable trouble trying to internalize its proper role. If this is true of scholars from such countries as West Germany and Italy, where the spectacle of judicial review of legislation for conformance with the supreme law of the land is not a total stranger, one can imagine the mental anguish experienced by Soviet students of comparative constitutional law in their attempt to grasp the status of the U.S. Supreme Court within the U.S. constitutional system. The main reason for this difficulty is that the U.S. Supreme Court is the ultimate antithesis of the USSR Supreme Court. In fact, of all the differences between the individual institutions of the U.S. and Soviet constitutional systems, perhaps the most pronounced are those between the U.S. and USSR supreme courts. These two courts are not only structurally and functionally different, but they also differ in the manner in which their justices are selected and in the relationship between the respective courts and other branches of the corresponding federal governments.
About the Author
Christopher Osakwe. Director, Tulane Institute of Comparative Law; Professor of Law, Tulane University. LL.B. 1966, LL.M. 1967, Ph. D. 1970, Moscow State University; J.S.D. 1974, University of Illinois.
Citation
53 Tul. L. Rev. 713 (1979)