Answer to Question 1
To prevent the possibility that the national government might use its power arbitrarily, the Constitution divided the national government's powers among three branches:
The legislative branch, or Congress, which makes the laws.
The executive branch, which enforces the laws.
The judicial branch, which interprets the laws.
Each branch performs a separate function, and no branch may exercise the authority of another branch. Each branch, however, has some power to limit the actions of these two branches. Congress, for example, can enact legislation relating to spending and commerce, but the president can veto that legislation. The executive branch is responsible for foreign affairs, but treaties with foreign governments require approval by the Senate. Although Congress determines the jurisdiction of the federal courts, the federal courts have the power to hold acts of these branches of the federal government unconstitutional. With this system of checks and balances, no one branch of government can accumulate too much power.
Answer to Question 2
The adversarial system of justice is a legal system in which the parties to a lawsuit are opponents, or adversaries, and present their cases in the light most favorable to themselves. The impartial decision maker (the judge or jury) determines who wins based on an application of the law to the evidence presented. Parties to a lawsuit come before the court as contestants, in an attempt to win the battle. The parties do not come together in the courtroom with the idea of working out a compromise solution to their problems or of looking at the dispute from each other's point of view.
Rather, they take sides, present their best case to the judge or jury (if it is a jury
trial), and hope that this impartial decision maker rules in their favor.
In an adversarial system, the goal of the attorneys (and paralegals) is not so much to determine the truth as to win the case. An attorney's job is not to seek out or reveal the truth to judges (although ethical rules prohibit attorneys from presenting evidence that they know to be untrue). Rather, the role of the attorney is to discover and
present the strongest legal argument on behalf of a client, regardless of the attorney's personal feelings about the client or the client's case. Because of the adversarial nature of our system, a paralegal may be asked to work on cases that he does not believe in or for clients he does not like.
A petrified log in Petrified Forest National Park.
National Results of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT)