The Judicial Power Shall Be Vested

The Text

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

What It Says

Federal judicial power sits in a Supreme Court plus whatever lower courts Congress creates. Judges serve during good behavior and their pay cannot be cut while they serve.

What It Protects Against

Judicial dependence. A judge who can be fired or defunded by the branch whose acts he reviews is not a check on that branch. Tenure and salary protection exist to make judgment costly to purchase.

Sourced to a ratification-era document. See Contemporaneous Defense below.

Problem Addressed

Colonial judges served at the King’s pleasure and were paid at his discretion, an arrangement the Declaration of Independence lists among its grievances.

Contemporaneous Defense

Federalist No. 78 argued that permanent tenure is the citadel of the public justice and public security, and that the judiciary, having neither force nor will but only judgment, is the least dangerous branch precisely because it depends on the others to execute its decisions.