Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:04:45.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democracy and Judicial Review: Are They Really Incompatible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2009

Annabelle Lever
Annabelle Lever
Affiliation:
London School of Economics
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article shows that judicial review has a democratic justification, although it is not necessary for democratic government and its virtues are controversial and often speculative. Against critics like Waldron and Bellamy, it shows that judges, no less than legislators, can embody democratic forms of representation, accountability and participation. Hence, judicial review is not undemocratic simply because it enables unelected judges to over-rule elected legislators when people disagree about rights. Against recent defenders of judicial review, such as Eisgruber and Brettschneider, it shows that democratic arguments for judicial review do not require judges to be better at protecting rights than legislators. Hence a democratic justification for judicial review does not depend on complex and inevitably controversial interpretations and evaluations of judicial as opposed to legislative judgments. Democratic government does not demand special virtue, competence or wisdom in its citizens or their leaders. From a democratic perspective, therefore, the case for judicial review is that it enables individuals to vindicate their rights against government in ways that parallel those they commonly use against each other. This makes judicial review normatively attractive whether or not it leads to better decisions than would be made by other means.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 805 - 822
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellamy, Richard. 2007. Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the Constitutionality of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brettschneider, Corey. 2007. Democratic Rights and the Substance of Self-Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1994. Pluralism and proceduralism. Chicago-Kent Law Review 69 (3): 589–618.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 2003. Procedure and substance in deliberative democracy. In Philosophy and Democracy: An Anthology, ed. Christiano, T.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Rogers, Joel. 1992. Secondary associations in democratic governance. Politics and Society 20: 393–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, Philip, ed. 1998. Conscience and Parliament. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Cretney, Steven. 1998. Law, Law Reform and the Family. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 1980. Democracy and Its Critics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dandridge v. Williams. 397. U.S., 471. (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duxbury, Neil. 2008. The Nature and Authority of Precedent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1986. Law's Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1996. Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Eisgruber, Christopher L. 2001. Constitutional Self-Government. Harvard: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ely, John H. 1980. Democracy and Distrust. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Eylon, Yuval, and Harel, Alon. 2006. The right to judicial review. Virginia Law Review 92 (5): 1–43.Google Scholar
Fabre, Cecile. 2000a. A philosophical argument for a Bill of Rights. British Journal of Political Science 30: 77–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabre, Cecile. 2000b. The dignity of rights. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 20 (2): 271–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Barry. 2005. The politics of judicial review. Texas Law Review 84: 2.Google Scholar
Fuller, Lon L. 1978–79. The forms and limits of adjudication. Harvard Law Review 92: 353–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fung, Archon. 2004. Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Garrow, David J. 1998. Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade. California: University of California.Google Scholar
Harel, Alon. 2003. Rights-based judicial review: A democratic justification. Law and Philosophy 22.Google Scholar
Harel, Alon, and Kahana, Tsvi. n.d. “The Real Case for Judicial Review: A Plea for Non-Instrumentalist Justification in Constitutional Theory.” Unpublished ms.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Morris B. 1997. Sexual Justice: Democratic Citizenship and the Politics of Desire. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kavanagh, Aileen. 2003. Participation and judicial review: A reply to Jeremy Waldron. Law and Philosophy 22.Google Scholar
Kornhauser, Lewis, and Sager, Lawrence G.. 1993. The one and the many: Adjudication in collegial courts. California Law Review 81: 1–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Larry D. 2004. The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Sueur, Andrew. 2004. Developing mechanisms for judicial accountability in the UK. Legal Studies 24: 73–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lever, Annabelle. 2007a. Mill and the secret ballot: Beyond coercion and corruption. Utilitas 19 (3): 354–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lever, Annabelle. 2007b. Is judicial review undemocratic? Public Law 2: 280–98.Google Scholar
Lever, Annabelle. 2009. Racial profiling and jury trials. The Jury Expert 21 (1): 20–35.Google Scholar
Lever, Annabelle. Forthcoming. Compulsory voting: A critical perspective. British Journal of Political Science 40 (1): Jan 2010.Google Scholar
Lochner v. New York. 198 U. S., 45, (1905).Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine A. 1987. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Manin, Bernard. 1997. Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. Should blacks represent blacks and women represent women? A contingent “yes.” Journal of Politics 61: 628–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 2003. Rethinking representation. American Political Science Review 97 (4): 515–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maravall, Jose M., and Przeworski, Adam, eds. 2003. Democracy and the Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, David, and Read, Mervyn. 1985. British Private Members balloted Bills: A lottery with few winners, small prizes, but high administrative vosts. Essex Papers in Politics and Government 21.Google Scholar
Norton, Philip. 2005. Parliament in British Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okin, Susan M. 1986. Justice, Gender and the Family. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Onora. 2002. A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures, 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1995. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, George Bingham. 2000. Elections as Instruments of Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, Peter. G. 1971. Parliament and Conscience. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. The Basic Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
San Antonio v. Rodriguez. 441 U.S., (1975).Google Scholar
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 2003. Weak and strong judicial review. Law and Philosophy 22: 381–92.Google Scholar
Stears, Marc. 2007. Liberalism and the politics of compulsion. British Journal of Political Science 37: 533–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steel, David. 1966. Hansard. HC. 732. July 22, 1966.Google Scholar
Thompson, Dennis F. 2002. Just Elections: Creating a Fair Electoral Process in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tribe, Lawrence. 1996. American Constitutional Law. Minneapolis: West Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark. 1980. Darkness on the edge of town: The contributions of John Hart Ely to constitutional theory. Yale Law Journal 89 (6): 1037–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tushnet, Mark. 1999. Taking the Constitution Away From the Courts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Underkuffler, Laura S. 2003. Moral rights, judicial review and democracy: A response to Horacio Spector. Law and Philosophy 22: 335.Google Scholar
Unger, Roberto M. 1986. The Critical Legal Studies Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2005. The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1993. Rights and majorities: Rousseau revisited. In Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1995. The Dignity of Legislation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1999. Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 2006. The core of the case against judicial review. Yale Law Journal 115 (6): 1346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Melissa S. 1998. Voice, Trust and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris M. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar