“Under our Constitution, ‘[t]he judicial Power of the United States’ is ‘vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.’ Art. III, § 1. That ‘judicial Power…extend[s] to…Treaties.’ Id., § 2. And, as Chief Justice Marshall famously explained, that judicial power includes the duty to ‘say what the law is.’ Marbury v. Madison (1803). If treaties are to be given effect as federal law under our legal system, determining their meaning as a matter of federal law ‘is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department,’ headed by the ‘one supreme Court’ established by the Constitution.” C.J. Roberts, Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 353–354 (2006).
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Definition
The Supreme Court case that established the power of judicial review.
During President John Adams’ lame duck session of his presidency, he appointed Marbury as a justice of the peace and signed the commission. Soon thereafter, Thomas Jefferson became President of the United States and refused to allow Secretary of State James Madison to deliver the commission to Marbury. Marbury sued Madison in the Supreme Court to get his commission via a writ of mandamus.
Under Justice John Marshall, the Court specifically held that the provision in the 1789 Act that granted the Supreme Court the power to issue a writ of mandamus was unconstitutional. On a broader scale, this case established that the Supreme Court had the authority, under the Supremacy Clause and Article III, § 2 of the Constitution, to review legislative or executive acts and find them unconstitutional. The Court also delineated the limits of the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, namely, political questions (which are not reviewable by the federal courts) and the limitations set forth by Article III of the Constitution. While Marbury v. Madison established that federal courts have limited jurisdiction, it also cemented the Court’s status as the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.
Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary
A U.S. Supreme Court case in which Chief Justice John Marshall used a dispute over judicial appointments to declare a judiciary act unconstitutional, establishing the power of the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of statutes.
Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary.
August 19, 2010, 5:27 pm
