CONGRESSIONAL REGULATION OF JUDICIAL REVIEW

Question 1

How does Congress regulate Judicial review?

Answer 1

Art. III. Sec. 2, Cl 2. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers ad Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supree Court shall have APPELLATE JURISDICTION, BOTH AS TO LAW AND FACT, WITH SUCH EXCEPTIONS, AND UNDER SUCH REGULATIONS AS THE CONGRESS SHALL MAKE.

Question 2

Ex parte McCardle

Answer 2

F - McCardle held in military custody and charged with criminal libel . Appealed from a denial of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court, but Congress passed an act (Military Reconstruction Act) forbidding the Court jurisdiction
I - Can congress use its authority to regulate the Court’s jurisdiction in a manner that reokes its power to hear direct appeals?
C - Yes. Sup Ct. derives its appeallate jurisdiction from the Connstitution, which gives Congress the express power to make exceptions to that appellate jurisdiction in Art III. Sec. 2. Cl. 2

Question 3

US v Klein

Answer 3

F - Congress enacted a statute directing the federal courts to dismiss for want of jurisdiction any suit in which the plaintiff relied on a presidential pardon to prove loyalty during the Civil War and, thus, entitlement to recover for property seized by the government.
R - Congress cannot, in the guise of regulating the courts appellate jurisdiction, use that as a mechanis to ignore substantive constitutional provisions.
A - here the statute violated the presidential pardon power

Question 4

Boumediene v Bush

Answer 4

F - Aliens designated as enemy combatants detained in Gitmo, Cuba, contended they had the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus, despite the procedures provided by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 for review of the detainees’ status, and that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 operated as an unconstitutional suspension of writ.
R - Congress’s powers to limit the federal courts’ jurisdiction are limited by the Suspension Clause of Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, which provides, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus”—a judicial writ used to inquire into the lawfulness of detentions—“shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”