The Role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Constitutional Interpretation and Law-Making

The highest judicial authority in the United States, the Supreme Court, plays a crucial role in interpreting the Constitution and in constitutional lawmaking. A primary reason for this is the extremely succinct formulation of most of the U.S. Constitution's text. Its instrumental nature provides the Supreme Court with ample opportunities to interpret its provisions before applying them to specific legal and factual circumstances. Additionally, the Constitution's text did not address many fundamental issues of constitutional law, which its drafters and the ratifying bodies at the end of the 18th century could not have foreseen.