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Article: Judicial Review
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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JUDICIAL REVIEW
JUDICIAL REVIEW.
When a court measures a statute or an executive action against a constitution, treaty, or other fundamental law, judicial review has occurred. The antecedents of modern judicial review were three: first, Edward Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case (1610), in which he declared an act of Parliament to be against "common right and reason" and therefore void; second, the opinions of the British Privy Council finding certain measures of colonial legislatures to have exceeded authorization under their royal charters; and third, early U.S. state government decisions that state statutes exceeded the permissible bounds set forth in the state constitutions. There were ...