Explain what is meant by the term “judicial review”. Support your answer with a relevant example.

The term ‘judicial review’ refers to the power of a higher court to declare laws and actions of government to be unconstitutional. This power exists in both the US and UK systems.

Senior members of the judiciary can review the actions of a government department or other public authority to determine whether the body has acted within its legal powers. If the judge decides that the body has not acted within its powers s/he can rule that it has acted “ultra vires.” This effectively means that the body must cease its actions because they are illegal. In this way the judiciary can play an important role in holding the executive and other public bodies to account for their actions.

Examples of reviews include when Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett was forced to reverse a decision on not paying welfare payments to immigrants in 2003 after a judicial review successfully questioned the legality of it. An example from the US is when in 2006 the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case declared that military commissions set up by Bush administration to try suspected members of al Qaeda held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were unconstitutional.