The Supreme Court and Judicial Review
Written by: Warren Michelson
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Judicial Review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Judicial review is used by the Supreme Court to review the laws that the legislative branch tries to pass and says whether or not that law is constitutional or not. “The Supreme Court of the United States spends much, if not most, of its time on a task which is not delegated to the Supreme Court by the Constitution” (Michelsen). What this basically means is that the Supreme Court spends time on things that are not going to be in the constitution. This process is called Judicial Review. This process wasn’t officially started, it just happened. “Since the constitution does not give this power to the court, you might wonder how it came to be that the court assumed this responsibility. The answer is that the court just started doing it and no one has put a stop to it. This assumption of power took place first in 1794 when the Supreme Court declared an act of congress to be unconstitutional, but went largely unnoticed until the landmark case of Marbury v Madison in 1803” (Michelsen). No one officially gave the judiciary branch the actual ability to deem things unconstitutional; they just chose to start doing so on that day. A reason that Judicial Review is important today as it was when they first started using it was so people couldn’t pass bills or make laws that could infringe on our constitutional rights. “The idea that the Supreme Court should be the arbiter of constitutionality issues has become so ingrained that most people incorrectly believe that the Constitution granted this power to the federal judiciary” (Michelson). Michelson is saying that we the people are not necessarily stupid but that we never really noticed this over the years.
The Judicial Branch
Published by: Whitehouse.gov
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A lot of the people of the United States know about the judicial branch and what happens in that branch. “Article III of the Constitution of the United States guarantees that every person accused of wrongdoing has the right to a fair trial before a competent judge and a jury of one's peers” (whitehouse.gov). This article is one of the rights that a person, as a citizen, gets when they are arrested by an officer of the law. What is different about the judicial branch is that the people of that branch are appointed by the president and approved by the senate. “Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Judicial Branch, leaves Congress significant discretion to determine the shape and structure of the federal judiciary” (whitehouse.gov). This is basically saying that congress has the right to make the federal judiciary the way it wishes. If we did not have Judicial Review, we could have laws and bills that would be able to possibly take away our rights as citizens, but we have Judicial Review, and our judiciary system is careful with the laws that are passed to ensure our country’s safety. “The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the land and the only part of the federal judiciary specifically required by the Constitution” (whitehouse.gov). With the things we know about our country’s judiciary system and our rights as citizens then we should be able to ensure our rights in the country.
Judicial Review
Written by: Stephen Haas
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Judicial
Review is important for many reasons. The supreme court uses judicial
review to tell if something is unconstitutional or not. Judicial
review wouldn't be possible without the separation of powers. The
reason being that sparation of powers is to make sure that one branch
of government does not get to powerful, so if there were no
separation of powers then there would be no making sure if a law or
bill is constitutional or not because the person in charge would not
like that. This is a defenition of Judicial Review. “Judicial
review is the power of the courts to declare that acts of the other
branches of government are unconstitutional, and thus unenforceable”
(Haas). With
the principle of Judicial review there are no laws that can infringe
on our rights as citizens. Here is an example of Judicial Review.
“For example if
Congress were to pass a law banning newspapers from printing
information about certain political matters, courts would have the
authority to rule that this law violates the First Amendment, and is
therefore unconstitutional” (Haas). Nother
example of Judical Review is if someone wanted to pass a law that
said people are not able to have guns at all then the court could
deem this law unconstitutional and it would not get passed. “State
courts also have the power to strike down their own state’s laws
based on the state or federal constitutions” (Haas). This
is also good because it is better to have it in each state rather
than having it just in one place. Judicial Review is important today
as it was when the founders wrote the U.s. Constitution because it is
still serving its purpose, which is to stop any type of laws that
infringe on our constitutional rights as citizens of the United
States of American.