What is the Supreme Court’s role in the process of judicial review, and how did the Court secure this role?

Question

What is the Supreme Court’s role in the process of judicial review, and how did the Court secure this role?

Answer 1

Judicial Review in the United States is the Supreme Courts ability to make sure that laws passed by states or congress or actions taken by the national government are inline with the Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land.

The power of judicial review was secured by two important cases early on in the history of the United States. They are Marbury v. Madison and Muculloch v. Maryland

Marbury was appointed and confirmed to be a judge very late into the John Adams administration. But because of the way the terms worked back then his appointment was not delivered by the time that Jefferson took office. Marbury took his case to the supreme court, demanding that Madison, then Secretary of State, deliver his appointment, because even though it was done in a previous term it was done validly. Chief Justice John Marshall stated that the court had a duty to make sure that the Consitution was being followed.

"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"

And while Marbury did not get his appointment, Marshall found that although the court had the authority to ensure constitutionality of laws and statutes, Marbury could not sue directly to the supreme court.

The state of Maryland attempted to tax, heavily, the newly formed national bank, or force it to go out of business. McCulloch, a cashier at the bank, refused to pay the tax, and ultimately the case ended up in court. The state of Maryland argued that the national government first of all had no authority to create a national bank, and that ultimately the state of Maryland was within its rights to tax whatever it wanted.

The Marshall court again upheld the supremacy of the constitution by stating that:

ONE - that although there is not explicit mention of 'national bank' in the constitution that it is an implied authority under the necessary and proper clause. And that there is NO way that the founders could have written down EVERYTHING that the naitonal government could or could not do. BUT they could create a framework to work under, with guidelines

Furthermore, where state law and the constitution clashed, Marshall contended that the constitution was supreme, because it was, the law of the land, and the essential social contract for a nation. The bare bones of america.