Activist Judge?

Activist judge.

Judicial tyranny.

These are the kinds of words that some people (mostly conservatives) cry out against a judge when that judge overturns a law they want, or orders some kind of religious object to be removed from public grounds, or any other number of things that they order to be stopped, because that judge finds whatever it is to be either unconstitutional, or illegal.

I find these words to be annoying and the actions of the people who use these words to be both childish and foolish.

There is a very good reason why the Constitution gives judges the power to declare a law unconstitutional, and thus, illegal.

It's not to create tyranny. It's to prevent it.

If judges did not have the powers to overturn a law, then Congress or any state legislator could create any bill they want to, and unless the President, or the state governor, veto's that bill, then that bill is going to become a law, and unless some future Congress or state legislator passes another bill that voids the previous law, then no one can do anything about it.

This is why we need judges to have the power to throw out a law, and why we have a system of checks and balances in the Constitution. It is not to give judges to much power, but it is to make sure the other two branches of the government do not have to much power.