Judicial Review: The Supreme Court Case Of John Marshall

Judicial review is unlike almost every other aspect of the American legal and legislative processes. It’s different for several reasons, but it is most unique in the sense that it was put into practice before it was put in to the books as law. It was instituted by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803’s landmark case Marbury v. Madison. Judicial review has been around for over 200 years, and it still draws as much criticism today as it did the day it was instituted.
John Marshall was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for 34 years and presided over some of the most important and famous trials in our country’s history, trials such as McCulloch v. Maryland, Cohens v. Virginia, and perhaps most infamously, the Aaron Burr treason trial. But all
The case went directly to the Supreme Court because Marbury was seeking a writ of mandamus and the Judiciary Act of 1789 states that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in such cases. Article III of the Constitution, however, lists situations in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction and writ on mandamus cases are not one of the situations given. Given these facts, it was Marshall’s “emphatic and provincial duty” to say what the law of the land should be. He ruled that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that judges shall not enforce a law they deem to be
As seen in U.S. v. Carolene Products Co. it helps to protect groups of minorities (whether physical or ideological) from a majority trying to over rule them. There are, however, many critics of judicial review who feel it provides a group that is supposed to be neutral a chance to have the final say on issues that are often times divisive. According to them, it is not the duty of the court to shape the law, but rather simply enforce it. The thought that a group of people who are appointed for life and face no real consequences for their decisions can overrule the elected officials doing the will of the people is, in their mind, wrong. They believe that the decisions made today should not be forced to conform to a maddingly vague, centuries-old document. There is also the rather ironic argument that judicial review, in and of itself, is unconstitutional. Nowhere in the Constitution is the power of judicial review given to the courts, and for some that leads to charges of hypocrisy. How can the decisions the court makes on the constitutionality of a law be considered binding, when there is nothing saying the Supreme Court’s word is