Origins Of The Judicial Review In The United States

Judicial review---a right performed by the Supreme Court to review and check the legality or the constitutionality of the laws and regulations passed by the legislative or the governments, had been established in the earlier American history. To tap into its origin, my research mainly explored from the perspectives of social and political background. Judicial review was the distinctive incarnation of judiciary independence, which represented the real completion of the separation of powers in both theory and practice.Generally speaking, the political heritage---the evolvement of the check and balance among governmental branches, and the established legal pattern---the common law, laid the foundations of the erection of judicial review. Compared with the upper two main currents that had fostered the maturity of judicial independence, more immediate social factors and political struggles supported the final emergence of judicial review.Chapter I briefed on the former opinions and viewpoints on this issue and located the researching approach between the progressivism and others' narrow concentration on the legal field. The following two chapters examined respectively the relative political tradition and immediate situations of the establishment of judicial review. Chapter II was devoted to the elaboration of inheritance from the Old World and Chapter III depicted more recent and immediate situations of the political struggles involved in the establishment. Entangled with the political struggles and compromises were some impressive and influential considerations from some great theorists and the founding fathers. Chapter IV explored deep into the pivotal legal case Marbury v. Madison, which Chief Justice John Marshall decided and heralded therefore the court's duty of wielding judicial review. Chapter V dealt concisely with the new characters of judicial review and the possibly supporting reasons. Chapter VI concluded some important points from the above chapters.