An Emphatically Provincial Duty

Arguably the most powerful ability of any branch of the United States government, the exercise of judicial review is an important tool in our majoritarian government. Judicial review in the United States is the power to render acts void which conflict with the Constitution. The sole province and duty of the Supreme Court is to interpret what the law and the Constitution is; it is the only branch of the federal government appropriate to handle this role. To understand why this is so we must look at how the power of judicial review was established through the United States Constitution and Marbury v. Madison, the difference in the philosophies of constitutional interpretation, the appointment process and perceived judicial activism of Supreme Court justices, and the balance of power between the three branches of the U.S. government.