4 - Solving Constitutional Problems

Summary

Judicial review is central to the Constitution-in-practice, and in the American system of vertical precedent this necessarily gives the Supreme Court, because it is the final voice in the primary American process of articulating constitutional law, the most important role in solving constitutional problems. It does not follow, however, that all constitutional questions are to be answered by the Supreme Court or that all constitutional answers are the ones that a majority of the justices think are correct in the abstract. The practice of constitutional law involves a web of principles, doctrines, and practices that make the perspective from which one is addressing a question a significant factor, much of the time, in the reasoning the constitutional lawyer should employ.