Tuesday, March 27, 2018

What are the concepts of ordered liberty, judicial review, and Magna Carta?

Ordered liberty: This is the concept that freedom should be limited by the necessity for order. In other words, proponents of ordered liberty believe that there can be no lasting freedom without the maintenance of order. Here's Edmund Burke on the subject:

The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

If you're interested in how this applies to the law, a good case to refer to would be Palko vs. Connecticut. The defendant, Palko, was accused of killing two Connecticut police officers. During the trial, some incirminating evidence was improperly excluded. As a result, the court found Palko guilty of second-degree murder, which held a sentence of life in prison. The state appealed and was given a new trial. This time, Palko was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko appealed, stating that the new sentence violated his Fifth Amendment right not to be prosecuted twice for the same crime. He also argued that the Fourteenth Amendment should apply to both federal and state cases. However, the court decided that the death sentence did not violate the "fundamental scheme to ordered liberty." 
Essentially, the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment protected only those rights necessary to ordered liberty. This brings us to the right of the Supreme Court to review any law or to make decisions based upon its interpretation of the Constitution.
Judicial review: This is the concept that the United States Supreme Court can overturn any congressional law or presidential act that it deems unconstitutional. Judicial review was essentially derived from the Marbury vs. Madison Supreme Court decision in 1803. The case centered around the judicial appointees of President John Adams.
While Congress had already approved their commissions, these justices of the peace did not receive their signed commissions before President Thomas Jefferson assumed office on March 1, 1801. In fact, Jefferson forbade Madison, his Secretary of State, to deliver those commissions. One of the judicial appointees, Marbury, filed for a legal order (or writ of mandamus) for Madison to show why he should not be appointed. In dispute was the authority of Congress to determine the fate of the judicial appointees.
The Supreme Court eventually decided against issuing the writ of mandamus for Marbury, citing the constitution's precedent for original jurisdiction. Original jurisdiction refers to the right of consuls, ambassadors, and ministers to approach the Supreme Court directly for a redress of grievances. Since Marbury was neither of these officials and he could not argue that the state was party to his case, his request for a legal order was rejected.
In any case, Marbury vs. Madison cemented the right of the Supreme Court to review all congressional actions and executive orders. The only thing it did not determine was how it would enforce its decisions if Congress or the executive branch disagreed with its findings. Today, state courts have the right to determine the constitutionality of all state laws, and the Supreme Court has the right to determine the constitutionality of all federal laws and executive actions.
Magna Carta: The Magna Carta was authored in 1215 as a protection against King John's draconian rule. It was basically a bill of rights, which later became the basis for English common law. When the colonists declared America's independence from England in 1776, they looked to the concepts of the Magna Carta as a model of liberty for the new nation. The Magna Carta encapsulated every argument against oppressive monarchical rule. Today, we can see that concept of liberty enshrined in the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." 
Essentially, the concepts of ordered liberty, judicial review, and the Magna Carta are connected in terms of their emphasis on the preservation of liberty.
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/judicial+review

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