Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Federal court ruling


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was delete the article as original research and a political soap box, but keep as a redirect to United States federal courts. Bearian (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Federal court ruling

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The stated goals of this article don't warrant the article's independent existence. For example, "[Whether] Clearly, lower courts can give orders to the White House and to federal agencies - which must be obeyed under pain of arrest, imprisonment, fines..." (see talk page) This is not a question about "federal court rulings," as such. This is a question of separation of powers. The question about how, when, and to what degree the executive must adhere to a federal court ruling is a very complex question, and it is properly answered with a discussion of the various spheres of operation of the three branches of government, which discussion is incident to an article on separation of powers, not on the nebulous concept of a "federal court ruling." Hence, my point is that there are existing tools on wikipedia that enable readers to find the information necessary to approach these questions. Articles on federalism, the federal system in general, separation of powers, etc. surely lead a reader to what he seeks. The problem is that the questions sought to be answered by this article often don't have "answers" per se, so much as they are questions inherent to our system of government that are constantly discussed.

Also, more generally, what is even meant by a "federal court ruling"? Is it a preliminary ruling? Is it a constitutional judgment? Is it a rule of construction? Is it criminal? Civil? What federal court rulings does it refer to? District? Courts of Appeal? Tax Court? Court of Federal Claims? FISA Court? There are MANY types of federal court rulings; they cannot be generalized like this article attempts to do. This heading is far too broad to lend itself to any sort of meaningful discussion. The questions about the import of a given federal ruling require context to lead to any meaningful answers. The context in which a ruling is made will be determinative of what it means, who it binds, and myriad other things.

Further, the statement that a federal court is the highest court possible is a patently incorrect statement. There are many federal courts that are "inferior" to state courts. This is not a question of the superiority of the court, per se. Rather, it's a question of the subject matter of the case or controversy before the court.

As it stands, it is my opinion that this article and the stated reasons for its existence reflect a general misunderstanding of the law and of our tripartite system of government. The questions sought to be answered by this article simply cannot be answered in the vacuum of this article. Rather, they are subsidiary questions arising out of the very nature of federalism and our system of separation of powers. This article simply is grossly over-simplistic in what it is attempting to do. In sum, the issues raised by this article are not inherent to "federal court rulings," and their independent discussion breeds confusion. They are inherent to our system of government; hence, they are best discussed in those contexts. Gorotdi (talk) 15:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Original research essay about the federal courts versus the executive branch lacks refs. Contains helpful info such as "A federal court ruling is a ruling made by a Federal Court,.." Edison (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. The term is certainly widely used, but it can mean so many different things, and bringing in the executive oversight angle seems superfluous (certainly they are not the only subjects of federal court rulings). I would then redirect to federal court. --Dhartung | Talk 21:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect to Federal court. This is simply not a useful article; if there is anything worth saying about 'federal court rulings', it can be said there. Terraxos (talk) 05:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep as a redirect to United States federal courts. I think this is the same thing as Terraxos just said, but "delete" means leaving behind a red link. I want to emphasize that a topic with over 100,000 Google hits is significant. Whether it's a section or a standalone article doesn't matter, just don't eliminate the topic entirely. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. It's a bit presumptuous that one searching for "federal court ruling" will mean the U.S. variety, particularly given the fact that--as the article points out--other countries have federal courts as well.  That, coupled with the fact that this term has no real meaning, warrants deletion as opposed to redirect.  It's also instructive that neither "state court ruling" nor "supreme court ruling" exist on Wikipedia, in redirect form or otherwise. Gorotdi (talk) 22:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.