In a polarized time of partisan fervor, the US Supreme Court's routine work of judicial review is increasingly viewed through a political lens, decried by one side or the other as judicial overreach, or "legislating from the bench". But is this really the case? Keith Whittington asks in this volume, a first-of-its-kind history of judicial review.
This book argues that the Constitution has a dual nature. The first aspect, on which legal scholars have focused, is the degree to which the Constitution acts as a binding set of rules that can be neutrally interpreted and externally enforced by the courts against government actors. This is the process of constitutional interpretation. But according to Keith Whittington, the Constitution also permeates politics itself, to guide and constrain p...
A discussion of how the judiciary should interpret the Constitution. Making use of arguments drawn from American history, political philosophy and literary theory, it examines what it means to interpret a written constitution and how the courts should go about the task.
