Opinion ID: 297065
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: permissibility of direct judicial review of an agency's interpretative action

Text: 12 The Government raises the basic question whether the courts may appropriately provide the judicial review sought by plaintiff of the interpretation by the Administrator. In past decisions refraining from judicial review courts have summoned, and often confused, a variety of concepts, finding a lack in one or another of the elements a suitor must provide to obtain judicial review: case or controversy; standing; finality (or formality); ripeness; suitability of case for relief in equity or declaratory judgment. These concepts are separable, and for clarity of analysis we discuss them separately, but with awareness that they are intermeshed in the overall determination of the appropriate occasion for judicial review. A. Case or Controversy; and Standing 13 The District Court's ruling that no case or controversy exists between the parties was intended, as appears from the cases it cited, 3 to invoke the rule that avoids judicial consideration of an administrative ruling that is only informal and hypothetical, until an enforcement proceeding is begun. We discuss this subsequently, and begin our consideration by taking up the Government's contention that, wholly apart from the lack of appropriateness of any court review at this juncture, plaintiff association lacks standing to sue, and has no interest of its own and no standing to vindicate the rights of its members.