History Of Judicial Review

The term judicial review is nothing but the procedure of examining the three wings actions such as legislative, executive and administrative law. Additional judicial review also analyze whether such actions are consistent with the constitution of the country.The doctrine of judicial review has acquired different nuances during the course of its evolution in UK, USA, and India. Its origins can be traced to UK which has no written Constitution. It has become firmly established in USA with a written Constitution establishing a federal polity. In administrative law, administrative action judicial review process has been started first from Britain.Further based on this foundation, Indian Courts built control mechanism superstructure. The entire

Constitution adopted in l789. The United States would have a vastly different political system if the courts did not possess the power of judicial review. Without judicial oversight of government actions, the legislative branch would be legally supreme, and the fundamental protections included in the constitution, such as freedom of speech would be ineffective. The inclusion of fundamental rights in the Constitution, combined with the power of judicial review, serves to protect the minority from laws created by a slim majority because a supermajority (two-third of each house of congress plus ratification by three-fourth of the States) is required to modify the

Many of the court’s decisions were controversial, and critics have charged that justices/ judges have written their own values into the constitution. There are several restrictions on the exercise of judicial review courts may strike down unconstitutional laws only when cases are brought to them. In the absence of a case, judges may not issue advisory opinion – that is, they may not say what they think a constitutional rule means or whether a law is invalid, moreover not every case presents the possibility of judicial review. The parties seeking review must have “standing”- that is, they must be the ones actually affected by the law in question. Also, the dispute must be “ripe” – a person may not ask a court to void a law if it has not yet been applied to that person. If the constitution says that other branches of the government have discretion to deal with an issue, the courts will not review such so called political questions. e.g., the courts have not reviewed such so called political questions. For example, the courts have no authority to overturn the President’s decision to pardon a felon since the constitution provides that the right to pardon is an executive