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On Judicial Review in a Separation of Powers System*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2015

Tiberiu Dragu  and
Oliver Board
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Abstract

The institution of judicial review is an important mechanism of holding thegovernment legally accountable, nevertheless questions remain about itsproper role in a separation of powers system. This article analyzes theeffect of judicial review on the policy-making process from an expertiseperspective. It shows that the exercise of non-expert judicial review caninduce more informed policies and that non-expert courts have incentives toexercise judicial review in a manner consistent with institutional concernsfor expertise. In addition to its importance as a mechanism of legalaccountability, our analysis underscores another virtue of judicial review:legal review of governmental policy by non-expert courts can improve theamount of information available for policy making. The article contributesto a literature on the scope and legitimacy of judicial review and hasbroader implications for understanding the effect of institutional checksand balances on the quality of policy making.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 473 - 492
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Tiberiu Dragu is Assistant Professor of Politics, New York University,19 West 4th, New York, NY 10012 (tiberiu.dragu@nyu.edu); Oliver Board is an Attorney inprivate practice (ojboard@gmail.com). The authors thank Livio Di Lonardo, JohnFerejohn, Xiaochen Fan, Mattias Polborn, Matthew Stephenson andseminar participants at New York University, Stanford University andUniversity of Illinois for useful comments and suggestions. All errorsare ours. To view supplementary material for this article, pleasevisit http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1017/psrm.2014.44

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