Re: The Initiation of Judicial Review

[Robert Justin Lipkin]

In a message dated 6/30/2003 2:17:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

I think the standard accounts of constitutional development underestimate the extent to which judicial power (here and elsewhere) is politically constructed rather than the byproduct of the independent will of a small number of autonomous judicial statesmen.

       My reaction to Howard's remark here and a similar remark by in Mark Graber most recent post is two fold: (1) I am intrigued, and (2) I wouldn't be surprised.

       My own views about constitutional change are compatible with the view that "judicial power . . . is politically constructed." However, I do not believe that the "politically constructed" view is incompatible with the view that judicial actors play a role in creating judicial review; instead, I think these views answer different questions which conceivably can be integrated in a synoptic theory of the cultural and political aspects of judicial power. But fortunately, not today.

  

Bobby Lipkin
Widener University School of Law
Delaware