Resumen De Setencia C 479 Del 92

PROYECTO DEL PRESIDENTE DE LA SUPREMA CORTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA SOBRE JUDICIAL REVIEW, JHON MARSHALL

―At the last term on the affidavits then read and filed with the clerk, a rule was granted in this case, requiring the Secretary of State to show cause why a mandamus43 should not issue, directing him to deliver to William Marbury his com-mission as a justice of the peace for thecounty of Washing-ton, in the district of Columbia. No cause has been shown, and the present motion is for a mandamus. The peculiar delicacy of this case, the novelty of some of its circumstances, and the real difficulty attending the points which occur in it, require a complete exposition of the principles on which the opinion to be given by the court is founded. . . . In the order in which thecourt has viewed this subject, the following questions have been considered and decided: 1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands? 2d. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy? 3d. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus issuing from this court? The first object of inquiry is…1st. Has the applicant a right to thecommission he demands? . . .

It [is] decidedly the opinion of the court, that when a com-mission has been signed by the president, the appointment is made; and that the commission is complete, when the seal of the United States has been affixed to it by the secretary of state. . . .

To withhold his commission, therefore, is an act deemed44 by the court not warranted by law, but violativeof a vested legal right.

This brings us to the second inquiry; which is 2dly. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford thatprotection. [The] government of the United States has been emphatically termed a govern-ment of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to de-serve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right. . . .

By the constitution of the United States, the President is in-vested with certain important political powers, in the exer-cise of which he isto use his own discretion, and is account-able only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience. To aid him in the performance of these du-ties, he is authorized to appoint certain officers, who act by his authority and in conformity with his orders.

In such cases, their acts are his acts; and whatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executivediscre-tion may be used, still there exists, and can exist, no power to control that discretion. The subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual Rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive. . . .

But when the legislature proceeds to impose on that officer other duties; when he is directed peremptorily to perform certain acts; when therights of individuals are dependent on the performance of those acts; he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away45 the vested rights of others.

The conclusion from this reasoning is, that where the heads of departments are the political or confidential agents of the executive, merely to execute the will of the President,or rather to act in cases in which the executive possesses a constitutional or legal discretion, nothing can be more perfectly clear than that their acts are only politically examinable. But where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty, it seems equally clear, that the individual who considers himself in-jured, has a right to resort to...