Can the US Supreme Court make a decision even if the President and Congress disagree?

Answer 1

Yes, the Supreme Court is independent of the President and Congress, so their rulings do occasionally result in conflicts with the Executive or Legislative branches. The President cannot veto Supreme Court decisions, and has no other recourse to change decisions he (or she) dislikes.

Congress can pass new legislation that satisfies the constitutional challenges raised by laws that have been nullified, unless the principle behind the law is, itself, unconstitutional, which is what they did in response to Hamden v. Rumsfeld,(2006). This also served the interests of the President, so he had an indirect impact on the Supreme Court in that case.

The Supreme Court is part of the system of "checks and balances" on the power of the Executive and Legislative branches when it ensures neither section of our tripartite government exceeds its authority and seizes too much power, or violates people's constitutional rights by passing laws that undermine guaranteed protection. Congress and the President, in turn, have means of checking the power of the Supreme Court.

Examples of Supreme Court Decisions Presidents Didn't Like

President Roosevelt, for example, wasn't particularly happy about the Court's ruling in a number of New Deal cases. The Supreme Court determined in Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388 (1935), that Congress had inappropriately delegated its power to the President, who attempted to impose penalties on oil companies that withdrew and shipped more than a specified amount of oil interstate and to other countries.

President Truman was annoyed by the Court's decision in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), (also called the Steel Seizure Case) when the Court determined Truman had overstepped his authority by attempting to seize operation of the nation's steel manufacturers during the Korean War in order to avert a threatened United Steel Workers of America strike.

More recently, President George W. Bush was thwarted in his attempt to remove the Supreme Court from participating in legal actions initiated by detainees at Guantanamo in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). This was only a temporary victory for the liberal faction of the Court, however, because Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissenting opinion, drew a blueprint for Congress to circumvent the Court's ruling. It's been rumored that Congress may lose the next round of the battle, because certain members of the Supreme Court and Congress believe the military tribunals used in place of the federal courts are allowing violations of the Constitutional and Geneva Convention.

For more information about checks and balances the Executive and Legislative branch can impose on the US Supreme Court, see Related Links, below.