Title: Separating Law-Making from Sausage-Making
Description: Inspired, perhaps, by the old adage that "people who like sausages and respect the law should never watch either being made," there is significant resistance among judges and scholars alike to the idea that courts should review the lawmaking process. This doctoral dissertation challenges this prevalent position, and establishes the case for judicial review of the legislative process. The dissertation develops the arguments for the authority of courts to review the legislative process; the legitimacy and theoretical justifications of such judicial review; and the practical and normative importance of such judicial involvement. It also challenges the resistance to judicial review of the legislative process by scrutinizing, and seeking to rebut, the major arguments underlying this resistance, and revealing this position's doctrinal and theoretical incoherence, and its negative consequences. In an effort to provide a multifaceted exploration of the issue, the dissertation combines multiple approaches of legal scholarship, including a legal-doctrinal approach, a comparative law approach, a jurisprudential and constitutional theory approach, and an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon political science research and several other disciplines.