Judicial review: Communications and Media

Communications and Media- Legislations
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Institution
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Judicial review
According to Armstrong (2002), Judicial review basically means the ability of court to critically examine if a statute or administrative regulation contradicts the United States constitution or even provisions of the existing laws. The constitution of the United States does not clearly explains the powers of the judicial review but at the same time judicial review has been drawn from the history of the United States constitution.
Judicial review was established by the ruling of two landmark cases by the Supreme Court. This cases were Hylton vs United States and Marbury vs Madison. The latter was the first Supreme Court case where the court asserted its authority over judicial review where existing law was deemed unconstitutional (Armstrong, 2002). Justice Marshall, while making the landmark ruling emphasized that the Supreme Court decision to overturn the unconstitutional decision was a result of their sworn oath at office to uphold the constitution as stated in article six.
Levels of federal court system and their function
There are basically three levels of federal court systems. These are; US District Court, US Circuit Court (Courts of Appeal) and finally the US Supreme Court.
The US district Court has mainly has jurisdiction on cases involving both criminal and civil actions (Armstrong, 2002). Civil actions mostly arise when a person’s constitutional rights are violated. It may also involve a violation of treaties of which the United States is part of. In addition, cases of foreign citizens are also heard in the US district court.
Secondly, criminal cases are cases in which the United States is part of or rather cases which the Unites States acts as the prosecutor.
The US circuit Courts of appeal has jurisdiction to hear appeals in which parties are not happy with the ruling from the US district courts (Armstrong, 2002). The ruling from the US District Court is reviewed by a panel of three judges to determine whether the decision made was fair to the parties involved.
The US Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States and it basically deals with all the maters of national importance (Armstrong, 2002). In addition, the Supreme Court also takes appeals from the appellant court but this happens if they are issues to do with the interpretation of the constitution. The supreme Court is the last of the appeal courts hence its decision is final.
Majority, dissenting and concurring opinions
In law, majority opinions are judicial opinions that are agreed by more than half of the members of a court (Armstrong, 2002). Therefore, the majority opinion sets the decision as to which the court has made pertaining a particular case. The explanations for such decisions are made.
Dissenting opinions are judicial opinion in which one or more judges express a different opinions from the majority of the court which the judgement is made (Armstrong, 2002). Normally, dissenting opinions are not binding and hence cannot become part of case law.
Finally, concurring opinions are opinions which are written by one or more judges where the judge or judges agrees with the majority of the court but instead writes a different reason(s) as for the reason for his or her decision (Armstrong, 2002). Since they do not receive most of the majorities vote, concurring decisions are not binding hence are not widely cited. In conclusion, majority, dissenting and concurring decisions are all written down when the court makes its decision.
Reference
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Armstrong, R. (2002). Covering government: A civics handbook for journalists. Ames: Iowa State Press.
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