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Full-Text Articles in Law
Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole
Judging The Next Emergency: Judicial Review And Individual Rights In Times Of Crisis, David Cole
Michigan Law Review
As virtually every law student who studies Marbury v. Madison learns, Chief Justice John Marshall's tactical genius was to establish judicial review in a case where the result could not be challenged. As a technical matter, Marbury lost, and the executive branch won. As furious as President Jefferson reportedly was with the decision, there was nothing he could do about it, for there was no mandate to defy. The Court's decision offered no remedy for Marbury himself, whose rights were directly at issue, and whose rights the Court found had indeed been violated. But over time, it became clear that …
Legislating Chevron, Elizabeth Garrett
Legislating Chevron, Elizabeth Garrett
Michigan Law Review
One of the most significant administrative law cases, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, lnc., is routinely referred to as the "counter-Marbury." The reference suggests that Chevron's command to courts to defer to certain reasonable agency interpretations of statutes is superficially an uneasy fit with the declaration in Marbury v. Madison that "[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." According to the consensus view, Chevron deference is consistent with Marbury, as long as Congress has delegated to agencies the power to make policy by interpreting ambiguous statutory language or filling …
Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn
Comparative Constitutionalism In A New Key, Paul W. Kahn
Michigan Law Review
Law is a symbolic system that structures the political imagination. The "rule of law" is a shorthand expression for a cultural practice that constructs a particular understanding of time and space, of subjects and groups, as well as of authority and legitimacy. It is a way of projecting, maintaining, and discovering meaning in the world of historical events and political possibilities. The rule of law - as opposed to the techniques of lawyering - is not the possession of lawyers. It is a characterization of the polity, which operates both descriptively and normatively in public perception. Ours, we believe, is …
The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen
The Irrepressible Myth Of Marbury, Michael Stokes Paulsen
Michigan Law Review
Nearly all of American constitutional law today rests on a myth. The myth, presented as standard history both in junior high civics texts and in advanced law school courses on constitutional law, runs something like this: A long, long time ago - 1803, if the storyteller is trying to be precise - in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States created the doctrine of "judicial review." Judicial review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide the meaning of the Constitution and to strike down laws that the Court finds unconstitutional. As …
Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet
Alternative Forms Of Judicial Review, Mark Tushnet
Michigan Law Review
The invention in the late twentieth century of what I call weak-form systems of judicial review provides us with the chance to see in a new light some traditional debates within U.S. constitutional law and theory, which are predicated on the fact that the United States has strong-form judicial review. Strong- and weak-form systems operate on the level of constitutional design, in the sense that their characteristics are specified in constitutional documents or in deep-rooted constitutional traditions. After sketching the differences between strong- and weak-form systems, I turn to design features that operate at the next lower level. Here legislatures …
Interpretation And Institutions, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Interpretation And Institutions, Cass R. Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
Michigan Law Review
Suppose that a statute, enacted several decades ago, bans the introduction of any color additive in food if that additive "causes cancer" in human beings or animals. Suppose that new technologies, able to detect low-level carcinogens, have shown that many potential additives cause cancer, even though the statistical risk is often tiny - akin to the risk of eating two peanuts with governmentally-permitted levels of aflatoxins. Suppose, finally, that a company seeks to introduce a certain color additive into food, acknowledging that the additive causes cancer, but urging that the risk is infinitesimal, and that if the statutory barrier were …
Losing Faith: America Without Judicial Review?, Erwin Chemerinsky
Losing Faith: America Without Judicial Review?, Erwin Chemerinsky
Michigan Law Review
In the last decade, it has become increasingly trendy to question whether the Supreme Court and constitutional judicial review really can make a difference. Gerald Rosenberg, for example, in The Hollow Hope, expressly questions whether judicial review achieves effective social change. Similarly, Michael Klarman explores whether the Supreme Court's desegregation decisions were effective, except insofar as they produced a right-wing backlash that induced action to desegregate. In Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts, Mark Tushnet approvingly invokes these arguments (pp. 137, 145), but he goes much further. Professor Tushnet contends that, on balance, constitutional judicial review is harmful. He …
The Democracy-Forcing Constitution, Neal Devins
The Democracy-Forcing Constitution, Neal Devins
Michigan Law Review
During my freshman year in college, I was told not to judge a book by its cover. The book in question - Lolita; the cover suggested something quite salacious. My professor explained that a soldier, who had purchased Lolita to work out some of the kinks of military life, found himself tossing the book out, proclaiming in disgust "Literature!" Well, I cannot claim precisely the same reaction to Cass Sunstein's One Case at a Time (my expectations were lower than the soldier's). Nevertheless, for those expecting a lefty defense of judicial restraint, One Case at a Time is not your …