Judicial Review

While accusing the Supreme Court's conservative justices of "disdain for democracy," Pamela S. Karlan proves herself talented at dispensing disdain. The Stanford law professor is, however, less talented at her chosen task of presenting a coherent understanding of judicial review. Still, her " Democracy and Disdain " in the November issue of the Harvard Law Review usefully illustrates progressivism's consistent disdain for the Founders' project of limiting government. The primary focus of her...

James Robertson [ "The wrong venue for drone review," op-ed, Feb. 17] asserted that judicial warrants for proposed drone strikes, unlike search warrants, would be unconstitutional advisory opinions because a "search warrant is not a death warrant. " Undoubtedly, there is a difference in severity between search warrants and drone warrants, but that does not mean drone warrants are advisory opinions. The purpose of drone warrants — like search warrants — is not to decide the ultimate legality of the act in question (e.g., police...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for an Idaho couple who have been in a four-year battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over the government's claim that the land on which they plan to build a home contains sensitive wetlands. The decision allows Mike and Chantell Sackett to go to court to challenge the agency's order. More broadly, it gives landowners and businesses a tool to fight the approximately 1,500 administrative compliance orders that the EPA issues each year to try to...

A proposal to give federal ­judges a direct role in the nation's drone campaign gained new momentum this week with a signal from senior lawmakers that they intend to consider creating a special court to oversee the selection of targets for lethal strikes. But the idea — cited by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), among others, as a way to impose new accountability on the drone program — faces significant legal and logistical hurdles, according to U.S. officials and legal experts.

There are plenty of problems with President Obama's targeted killings in the war against terrorism: The policy remains secret in most aspects, involves no judicial review, has resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, has been employed far from any battlefield and has sparked deep anti-American resentment in countries where we can ill afford it. But when it comes to the particular legal issue raised in a recently leaked "white paper" from...

CAIRO — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi took extensive new powers for himself Thursday, freeing his decisions from judicial review and ordering retrials for former top officials, including ex-president Hosni Mubarak. The decree, issued a day after Morsi won international praise for fostering a cease-fire in Gaza, appears to leave few if any checks on his power. The president said all of the decisions he has made since he took office in June — and until a new constitution is adopted and a parliament...

James Robertson [ "The wrong venue for drone review," op-ed, Feb. 17] asserted that judicial warrants for proposed drone strikes, unlike search warrants, would be unconstitutional advisory opinions because a "search warrant is not a death warrant. " Undoubtedly, there is a difference in severity between search warrants and drone warrants, but that does not mean drone warrants are advisory opinions. The purpose of drone warrants — like search warrants — is not to decide the ultimate legality of the act in...

If George W. Bush had told us that the "war on terror" gave him the right to execute a U.S. citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft, without due process or judicial review, I'd have gone ballistic. It makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is Barack Obama. What's wrong is wrong. The moral and ethical questions posed by the advent of drone warfare — which amounts to assassination by remote control — are painfully complex. We had better start working out some answers because, as an...

President Obama acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that some detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have to be held without trial indefinitely, siding with conservative national security advocates on one of the most contentious issues raised by the closing of the military prison in Cuba. "We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said. "But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who...

A proposal to give federal ­judges a direct role in the nation's drone campaign gained new momentum this week with a signal from senior lawmakers that they intend to consider creating a special court to oversee the selection of targets for lethal strikes. But the idea — cited by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), among others, as a way to impose new accountability on the drone program — faces significant legal and logistical hurdles, according to U.S. officials and legal...

There are plenty of problems with President Obama's targeted killings in the war against terrorism: The policy remains secret in most aspects, involves no judicial review, has resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, has been employed far from any battlefield and has sparked deep anti-American resentment in countries where we can ill afford it. But when it comes to the particular legal issue raised in a recently leaked "white paper" from...

If George W. Bush had told us that the "war on terror" gave him the right to execute a U.S. citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft, without due process or judicial review, I'd have gone ballistic. It makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is Barack Obama. What's wrong is wrong. The moral and ethical questions posed by the advent of drone warfare — which amounts to assassination by remote control — are painfully complex. We had better start working out some answers because, as...

Regarding George F. Will's Dec. 30 op-ed column, " ‘Disdain' and democracy" : As a scholar, I am grateful when others engage my work. But Mr. Will's column distorted my Harvard Law Review article in details both large and small. Yes, the Framers of our Constitution intended to limit the federal government's power to protect liberty. But they also crafted the new Constitution to empower the government to deal with critical problems. For much of our history, the Supreme Court recognized congressional resourcefulness...

While accusing the Supreme Court's conservative justices of "disdain for democracy," Pamela S. Karlan proves herself talented at dispensing disdain. The Stanford law professor is, however, less talented at her chosen task of presenting a coherent understanding of judicial review. Still, her " Democracy and Disdain " in the November issue of the Harvard Law Review usefully illustrates progressivism's consistent disdain for the Founders' project of limiting government. The primary focus of her...

CAIRO — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi took extensive new powers for himself Thursday, freeing his decisions from judicial review and ordering retrials for former top officials, including ex-president Hosni Mubarak. The decree, issued a day after Morsi won international praise for fostering a cease-fire in Gaza, appears to leave few if any checks on his power. The president said all of the decisions he has made since he took office in June — and until a new constitution is adopted and a...

Steven Pearlstein's assertion that there is a conservative "judicial jihad" against the regulatory state was wrong [" The judicial jihad against the regulatory state ," Business, Oct. 14]. Federal courts invalidate a minuscule percentage of the regulations they review. It seems to me that what Mr. Pearlstein was objecting to is not "judicial activism" but judicial review itself. While decrying the results in a handful of cases, he mentioned neither the Administrative Procedure Act nor the Constitution, both...

LAST MONTH, the Obama administration informed a D.C. federal court that it opposes judicial review of the detentions of those held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. That means it is implicitly arguing that it can continue to hold people, some of whom were seized outside of Afghanistan, year after year, without charge or access to lawyers. This is unacceptable. The Bagram situation is not identical to that at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; last year, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees there are entitled to judicial review.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this letter incorrectly rendered the writer's name as Sharon Bradford and the organization's name as the Franklin Constitution Project. The Aug. 3 editorial [" An Independent Lens "] advocating the creation of a national security court presented a strong case for independent judicial review. But its incorrect and dangerous conclusion that the creation of a national security court is the best way to provide this review does not follow from the arguments made in the editorial.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for an Idaho couple who have been in a four-year battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over the government's claim that the land on which they plan to build a home contains sensitive wetlands. The decision allows Mike and Chantell Sackett to go to court to challenge the agency's order. More broadly, it gives landowners and businesses a tool to fight the approximately 1,500 administrative compliance orders that the EPA issues each year to try to...

An appellate court announced Thursday that it will conduct a judicial misconduct review of Montana's chief federal district judge for e-mailing what he acknowledged was a racist joke about President Obama. Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull apologized in interviews with the Great Falls Tribune and Billings Gazette. "There's no doubt it's racist," Cebull told the Gazette . "It wasn't forwarded for that purpose. If anything, it was political. " He added that he is...