A Tale of Two Courts

Abstract

Widespread concern regarding the U.S. Supreme Court is pushing scholars and politicians to look for truly innovative solutions. Two recent proposals, the Supreme Court Lottery and the Balanced Bench, advocate for institutional and procedural reforms that are untested in the American context. This Essay, A Tale of Two Courts, offers concrete reasons why many aspects of these proposals are worrisome by drawing on a natural experiment involving the supreme court of another country, India. I show how the Indian Court has long exemplified several of the practices or design elements featured in the Lottery Court and Balanced Bench, and how these features have functioned in real life. In doing so, the Essay offers insights into court design and functioning that are simply unavailable from within American constitutional experience.

Keywords: Supreme Court, judicial reform, United States, India, comparative law