Explores how courts vary the depth of scrutiny in judicial review and the virtues of different approaches.

The mediation of the balance between vigilance and restraint is a fundamental feature of judicial review of administrative action in the Anglo-Commonwealth. This balance is realised through the modulation of the depth of scrutiny when reviewing the decisions of ministers, public bodies and officials. While variability is ubiquitous, it takes different shapes and forms. Dean R. Knight explores the main shapes and forms employed in judicial review in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand over the last fifty years. Four schemata are drawn from the case law and taken back to conceptual foundations, exposing their commonality and differences, and each approach is evaluated. This detailed methodology provides a sound basis for decisions and debates about how variability should be brought to individual cases and will be of great value to legal scholars, judges and practitioners interested in judicial review.

In this book, the author presents a new interpretation of the origin of judicial review. She traces the development of judicial review from American independence through the tenure of John Marshall as Chief Justice, showing that Marshall's role was far more innovative and decisive than has yet been recognized. According to the author all support for judicial review before Marshall contemplated a fundamentally different practice from that which we know today. Marshall did not simply reinforce or extend ideas already accepted but, in superficially minor and disguised ways, effected a radical transformation in the nature of the constitution and the judicial relationship to it.

Five essays examine the concept of "judicial review" from a historical perspective. The term is defined as the power and duty of a court to disregard ultra vires legislative acts.

Contains papers and comments from the conference on the Foundations of Judicial Review, held in Cambridge, England, May 22, 1999, and some previously published papers.

Explores the English origins of the principles of judicial review in common law jurisdictions and autochthonous pressures for their adaptation.