judicial review

judicial reviewnoun

• 1

  lawThe doctrine, implemented in varying ways in differing jurisdictions, that authorities within the judicial branch of government may examine and make rulings on the legal validity of decisions and actions of the legislative and executive branches of government and, in some jurisdictions, of others within the judicial branch itself.

  • Since it appears that judicial review is here to stay, some who remain troubled by it urge that at the very least the enterprise of judges deciding constitutional questions should be limited to discovering the intent of the Framers.
• 2

  lawA judicial process undertaken under this doctrine.

  • [T]he senate committee on interstate commerce adjourned until next Thursday without having taken a vote on the bill or considered an amendment for a judicial review of the orders of the interstate commerce commission.
  • After one of Britain's most politically sensitive judicial reviews, a three-judge court today upheld the convictions of six men for the murder of 21 people in the bombing of a Birmingham pub in 1974.