Transcript of the above video:

This is kind of one of these rare videos where I am going to get a little bit more in depth than I usually do regarding jurisprudence, American Constitutional Law, sort of comparative law and we are going to kind of touch on although it is from the title of this video it probably seems like this is going to be more about politics than it actually will be because what we are actually talking about here is the Doctrine, the Political Question Doctrine which exists in American Jurisprudence, specifically the American legal analysis regarding US Constitutional Law. You can also look at this from the Civil procedural issue with respect to the notion of "standing" in the US Court System, and just kind of comparing this, contrasting, kind of looking at the overall system. 

So to give some background here, I am going to go to constitution.findlaw.com under the heading: The Supreme Court and Political Questions. Quoting directly: "What is the Political Question Doctrine? And then this is from the source: United States Library of Congress, The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation. Quoting directly: "The Political Question Doctrine limits the ability of the Federal Courts to hear constitutional questions even where other justiciability requirements such, as standing, ripeness and mootness, would otherwise be met." So when we are talking about "standing" we are talking about "Are you somebody who has actually been harmed and therefore you have standing in a case?" "Is the case ripe? Has a law come into effect that now impacts you?" "Is a case moot? Has a law ceased to exist, which no longer affects you, so you don't have standing?" These are issues that have to do with "standing to be heard in a Court". Now even where you may have standing, it may not be a moot issue, it may be a ripe issue, you may still have a problem in certain American Courts with the issue of this "Political Question Doctrine." So, quoting further: "The Supreme Court has stated that for purposes of Article 3 of the Constitution, ‘No judicial controversy exists when parties seek adjudication of a political question.’ Quoting further from this excerpt: "But the term "political question" is a legal term of art that on its face gives little indication of what sorts of cases the doctrine bars federal courts from deciding. The phrase, which has its origins in Chief Justice Marshall's landmark opinion in Marbury versus Madison is potentially misleading, as Federal Courts deal with political issues in the sense of controversial and government related issues, all the time. Rather than referring generally to any such political issue, the term "political question" expresses the principle that some issues are either entrusted solely to another branch of Government or are beyond the competence of the judiciary to review." Quoting further: "Finding that a matter qualifies as a “political question” divests Federal Courts of jurisdiction, meaning they lack the power to rule on the matter." 

The reason I bring this up is we are seeing a lot of political stuff going on not only in the US, I am not saying that I think there should be a parallel Doctrine under Thai Law by any stretch, but we are seeing more and more in the past roughly 40 years I would say in the United States and quite honestly it seems to be more acute in Thailand where this trend has been kind of moving forward in the past 20, 25 years here in Thailand, the issue of "political questions" especially in the US Supreme Court context, the more activist Courts, it just seems as though the Court and I am talking about the US specifically here, has been more politicized than ever. They are dealing with more political, I won't say "political questions" because if it is a "political question" it is therefore not something they are going to deal with but as they note in that excerpt, they deal with political issues all the time, things that have political ramifications. The question becomes in my mind, at what point is it maybe a good idea for the Court to just simply kind of throw up its hands and say "Hey this is a political question. Courts are Law Courts, Courts are not political Courts. They are not there to be political actors, they are there to adjudicate cases at Law." Now that can get kind of complex when you are dealing with Constitutional issues for example or issues that may be an actual case or controversy that is really not in and of itself political but it has fundamental political ramifications. Now where you draw the line between saying "Look, a case may have political ramifications" as opposed to "Hey this is a political question. We are not going to get into that." I guess that's an issue for the Judiciary to deal with on their own but I do think it is worth noting that a lot of people sort of in the general public, in many places I think, this could be United States most assuredly, maybe it even could be said here in Thailand but even around the world, I think there has been a lot more pressure placed on Courts generally to adjudicate what in the past were clearly defined as political questions and Courts would kind of say "Look that is not our role. We deal with findings of fact and conclusions of law. We are not here to act as sort of political referees". Now whether or not this trend continues remains to be seen. I am not really bringing this up to discuss anything specifically, it is just I do think that people have kind of conceptually forgotten that at some point, especially in the American jurisprudence tradition, there was a point in time where the judiciary said "hey look it is not our function to act as arbiters of political questions, we are simply here as judges in courts of law in order to adjudicate cases at law" and I think that is definitely something the general public has forgotten.