Judicial Review : America's Influence over Other Countries

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Judicial Review Thesis: The power of the judicial review has changed as America grew but the basic fundamentals were so advantageous that they revolutionized the justice systems of countries in Europe and the rest of the world. The other countries of the world adopted judicial review because it gave the courts a way to indirectly enforce their rulings. Judicial review is the power of the courts to declare laws unconstitutional. Judicial review, is the most significant foundation of judicial power in the United States, it allows the judiciary branch to decide the constitutionality of acts by the congress and the white house. Judicial review allows the judiciary branch enforce their rulings. They cannot enforce them through any other way. Judicial review is the judiciary's foremost "check and balance" counter to the legislative and executive branches of government. In other countries judicial reviewEfforts to justify the exercise of judicial review have been made since the nation's founding. In the late 18th century, individuals such as James Iredell, Alexander Hamilton, and James Wilson wrote publicly to convince the American people to accept the judiciary they had designed. Most notably, in The Federalist#78, Alexander Hamilton advocated judicial review on the grounds that the Constitution represents boundaries that legislators may not cross, and the courts can best protect those boundaries. If the legislature breaks the rules of the Constitution, the people can be sure the courts, through judicial review, will reign in such excesses. With no British precedent to serve as a guide, the relationship between the federal and provincial governments in Canada was largely influenced by American political principle and experience. Like the American federal Constitution established 80 years earlier, the British North America Act specified the distribution of powers

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