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Full-Text Articles in Law
Judicial Review And Non-Enforcement At The Founding, Matthew J. Steilen
Judicial Review And Non-Enforcement At The Founding, Matthew J. Steilen
Journal Articles
This Article examines the relationship between judicial review and presidential non-enforcement of statutory law. Defenders of non-enforcement regularly argue that the justification for judicial review that prevailed at the time of the founding also justifies the president in declining to enforce unconstitutional laws. The argument is unsound. This Article shows that there is essentially no historical evidence, from ratification through the first decade under the Constitution, in support of a non-enforcement power. It also shows that the framers repeatedly made statements inconsistent with the supposition that the president could refuse to enforce laws he deemed unconstitutional. In contrast, during this …
The Confident Court, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
The Confident Court, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
Journal Articles
Despite longstanding rules regarding judicial deference, the Supreme Court’s decisions in its October 2012 Term show that a majority of the Court is increasingly willing to supplant both the prudential and legal judgments of various institutional actors, including Congress, federal agencies, and state universities. Whatever the motivation for such a shift, this Essay simply suggests that today’s Supreme Court is a confident one. A core group of justices has an increasingly self-assured view of the judiciary’s ability to conduct an independent assessment of both the legal and factual aspects of the cases that come before the Court. This piece discusses …
The Supreme Court And The Constitution: The Continuing Debate On Judicial Review, Donald P. Kommers
The Supreme Court And The Constitution: The Continuing Debate On Judicial Review, Donald P. Kommers
Journal Articles
The three books reviewed in this essay are recent contributions to the growing literature of constitutional theory (Michael J. Perry, The Constitution, the Courts, and Human Rights (New Ha- ven: Yale University Press, 1982); Sotirios A. Barber, On What the Constitution Means (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); and John Agresto, The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). They explore important questions about the role of the Supreme Court and the meaning of the Constitution.