Conflicting or Consistent: Research on American Democracy and Judicial Review

Judicial review in America is criticized because of its anti-democracy characteristic, which receives arguments from the democracy. These arguments mainly focus either on the inner legitimacy and how judges explain the Constitution objectively, or on the outer legitimacy and how people accept judicial review in a democratic society. These arguments assume the precondition of democracy but fail to understand the meaning of America democracy. America democracy is a constitutional and restricted democracy. The fact that judicial review has restricted the democracy is consistent with the spirit of America constitutional system. Thus from the perspective of American’ constitutional system, judicial review is consistent with democracy in sustaining constitutional system.