Use this American Government by the People video entitled The Judiciary: The Balancing Branch to understand how government works and to study how The American judicial process is based on the adversary system and how judges in the United States play a more active role in the political process than they do in most other democracies. Learn how Federal courts are established by and receive their jurisdiction directly from Congress, which must decide the constitutional division of responsibilities among federal and state courts. Discover how Federal judges apply statutory law, common law, equity law, constitutional law, admiralty and maritime law, and administrative law and how they apply federal, criminal, and civil law. Although bound by procedural requirements, including stare decisis, they can exercise discretion.