Maintaining the Constitution's Power

Last week, the United States Supreme Court made a crucial ruling on the case of Medellin v. Texas. In 1994, Jose E. Medellin, a Mexican citizen, was convicted by the State of Texas for the murder and rape of two teenage girls. Because Medellin was not informed of his right to seek assistance from Mexican diplomats, as required by the Vienna Convention, Mexico filed a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice, or the World Court, on behalf of Medellin and of 51 other convicted Mexicans who had not received their Vienna Convention Notification. President Bush intervened by asking the judicial system of Texas, to help the government, ''discharge its international obligations'' by reopening the cases because in 2004 the World Court ruled that the United States was obliged to reconsider the cases. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to do so because not only was the issue not raised during trial, as required by Texas law, but the court held that the World Court’s decision was not “binding federal law.”

The central issues presented in this case were if the Constitution required state courts to honor the treaty obligation of the U.S. by enforcing a decision of the World Court and whether the President had the constitutional authority to determine that the states must comply with the treaty and the decisions of the World Court. In other words, the issue was whether decisions of the World Court are superior to those of the Supreme Court. By a 6-3 vote, the Court concluded that under the United States Constitution, the World Court lacks the authority to force our state and federal courts to obey their rulings. The court also concluded that the President had no constitutional authority to enforce a treaty because the treaty was not “self-executing” and only the president along with Congress could pass legislation that could enforce it.

If the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of the World Court, it would have affected the sovereignty our nation by placing the decisions of the World Court above our own Constitutional law. The Supreme Court made it clear that it would maintain the superiority of the Constitution above foreign law. The Supreme Court also maintains the concept separation of powers by not allowing the President to overstep the constitutional powers of the executive branch.