Marbury vs.

Madision 5 US 137 | Feb 24, 1803 William Marbury = Justice of Peace in Columbia James Madision = Secrtary of State of the USA Note: This case is important because it is said that the power of judicial review started with this case. There is even an inscription in the wall of the US SC with the lines: It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is from the Chief Justice Marshall that outlines the concept of judicial review. Facts: At the December term 1801, William Marbury, Dennis Ramsay, Robert Townsend Hooe, and William Harper, by their counsel severally moved the court for a rule to James Madison, secretary of state of the United States, to show cause why a mandamus should not issue commanding Madison to deliver the documents that affirm the appointment of Marbury as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia. The applicants have requested Mr. Madison to deliver them their said commissions but the Secretary of State did not comply. The court, through Chief Justice Marshall, reviewed the case considering the following questions: 1. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands? 2. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy? 3. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus issuing from this court? The answers that were given are as follows: 1. Mr. Marbury, then, since his commission was signed by the president and sealed by the secretary of state, was appointed; and as the law creating the office gave the officer a right to hold for five years independent of the executive. The appointment was not revocable; but vested in the officer legal rights which are protected by the laws of his country. To withhold the commission, therefore, is an act deemed by the court not warranted by law, but violative of a vested legal right. 2. Having this legal title to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission. A refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right, for which the laws of his country afford him a remedy. 3. To enable this court to issue a mandamus, it must be shown to be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, or to be necessary to enable them to exercise appellate jurisdiction. Issues: Whether or not an act repugnant to the constitution (in this case, issuing a mandamus in an original jurisdiction) can become part of the law of the land. o This is because congress passed a law where the SC would have jurisdiction over cases of mandamus. Held: NO, a law that is repugnant to the constitution cannot become part of the law of the land. It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that case. Although,

therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts, yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper, is in effect the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and therefore seems not to belong to appellate, but to original jurisdiction. The authority, therefore, given to the supreme court, by the act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the constitution; and it becomes necessary to inquire whether a jurisdiction, so conferred, can be exercised. This is also why the concept of judicial review was established. When congress passes a law that is contrary or assailed to be unconstitutional, it is in the power and authority of the courts to settle on whether it is indeed unconstitutional or not. o Thus the US SC reviewed the law which gave it the power to take jurisdiction over cases of madamus. It held that when the congress passed the law that gave them this power it went against the constitution, thus this power should be revoked for being unconstitutional. Marbury did not become a justice of peace in Columbia. This is because the SC ruled that it did not have the jurisdiction necessary to compel the grant of the writ. This is because it was not inherent in its powers to do such a thing according to the constitution. o The constitution states that they will only have appellate jurisdiction and not original. Thus in presenting the case directly to the SC Marbury is relying that the mandamus will be granted by the SC by a power that it does not have.