Scholarship@WashULaw

Document Type

Book Review

Language

English (en)

Publication Date

2022

Publication Title

National Law School of India Review

Abstract

At a time when worldwide democratic decline is of grave concern, Rosalind Dixon’s Responsive Judicial Review is vital and timely. Dixon sketches an attractive vision of courts’ highest role as one of democracy-defense: protecting free and fair elections, ensuring rights and freedoms remain in vigor, muscularly enforcing checks and balances. Granted, argues Dixon, “responsive” courts must exercise their powers in a context-sensitive way; courts in fraught environments cannot get away with quite as much entrepreneurial judging as their counterparts, and they should tailor a remedy to ensure, one, its own feasibility, and two, the court’s survival. The pragmatic character of Dixon’s responsive judicial review ensures that it could be adopted by courts across any number of jurisdictions. One, it seems to me, in which it is sorely needed is the United States.

Keywords

Judicial Review, Constitutional Law, Supreme Court

Publication Citation

Andrea Scoseria Katz, Unresponsive Judicial Review: How Formalism on the American Bench Thwarts Democracy Defense, 34 Nat’l L. Sch. India Rev. 44 (2022)

Comments

A review of Rosalind Dixon’s Responsive Judicial Review

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