Origins of Judicial Review and Marbury v. Madison
Dr. David Adler · December 17, 2021
Skeptics of the federal judiciary's authority to declare laws unconstitutional have expressed doubts and concerns ever since the Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), first exercised the awesome power of judicial review when it declared unconstitutional a section of the Judiciary Act of 1789. In his landmark opinion for the Court, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the reviewing authority is grounded in the judicial responsibility to "say what the law is."
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