In the United States, judicial review is the legal power of a court to determine if a statute, treaty, or administrative regulation contradicts or violates the provisions of existing law, a State Constitution, or ultimately the United States Constitution. While the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define the power of judicial review, the authority for judicial review in the United States has been inferred from the structure, provisions, and history of the Constitution.
Two landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court served to confirm the inferred constitutional authority for judicial review in the United States. In 1796, Hylton v. United States was the first case decided by the Supreme Court involving a direct challenge to the constitutionality of an act of Congress, the Carriage Act of 1794 which imposed a "carriage tax". The Court performed judicial review of the plaintiff's claim that the carriage tax was unconstitutional. After review, the Supreme Court decided the Carriage Act was constitutional. In 1803, Marbury v. Madison was the first Supreme Court case where the Court asserted its authority to strike down a law as unconstitutional. At the end of his opinion in this decision, Chief Justice John Marshall maintained that the Supreme Court's responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of their sworn oath of office to uphold the Constitution as instructed in Article Six of the Constitution.
, the United States Supreme Court has held 176 Acts of the U.S. Congress unconstitutional. In the period 1960–2019, the Supreme Court has held 483 laws unconstitutional in whole or in part.
Judicial review before the Constitution
Hamilton wrote, in Federalist 78:But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of particular citizens' private rights, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them...The first American decision to recognize the principle of judicial review was Bayard v. Singleton, decided in 1787 by the Supreme Court of North Carolina's predecessor. The North Carolina court and its counterparts in other states treated state constitutions as statements of governing law to be interpreted and applied by judges.
These courts reasoned that because their state constitution was the fundamental law of the state, they must apply the state constitution rather than an act of the legislature that was inconsistent with the state constitution. These state court cases involving judicial review were reported in the press and produced public discussion and comment. Notable state cases involving judicial review include Commonwealth v. Caton (Virginia, 1782), Rutgers v. Waddington (New York, 1784), Trevett v. Weeden (Rhode Island, 1786). Scholar Larry Kramer agreed with Justice Iredell that any judge who enforces an unconstitutional law becomes complicit in the unconstitutionality and that they themselves become lawbreakers.
At least seven of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, including Alexander Hamilton, John Blair Jr. George Wythe, and Edmund Randolph, had personal experience with judicial review because they had been lawyers or judges in these state court cases involving judicial review. Other delegates referred to some of these state court cases during the debates at the Constitutional Convention. The concept of judicial review therefore was familiar to the framers and to the public before the Constitutional Convention.
Some historians argue that Dr. Bonham's Case was influential in the development of judicial review in the United States.
Provisions of the Constitution
The text of the Constitution does not contain a specific reference to the power of judicial review. Rather, the power to declare laws unconstitutional has been deemed an implied power, derived from Article III and Article VI.
The provisions relating to the federal judicial power in Article III state:
The Supremacy Clause of Article VI states: