Marbury v Madison - Arrest

U.S. Supreme Court, Marbury v Madison (1803)

In the order in which the Court has viewed this subject, the following questions have been considered and decided.

1. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demands?

Marbury has a right to the commission. The order granting the commission takes effect when the Executive’s constitutional power of appointment has been exercised, and the power has been exercised when the last act required from the person possessing the power has been performed. The grant of the commission to Marbury became effective when signed by President Adams.

2. If he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

Marbury is afforded a remedy. Civil liberty essence consists 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 that protection.

Where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty, the individual who considers himself injured has a right to resort to the law for a remedy. The President, by signing the commission, appointed Marbury a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. The seal of the United States, affixed thereto by the Secretary of State, is conclusive testimony of the verity of the signature, and of the completion of the appointment. Having this legal right to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission, a refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right for which the laws of the country afford him a remedy.

3. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus issuing from this court?

The Supreme Court has the authority to review acts of Congress and determine whether they are unconstitutional and therefore void. The Judicial Department needs to say what is law. When two laws are in conflict with each other, the Court must decide on the operation of each. If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

The Supreme Court doesn’t have original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus. Only when it is an exercise of appellate jurisdiction, the court can be enabled to issue a mandamus.

Or it must be necessary to enable them in case to exercise appellate jurisdiction. It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create that case. Although, therefore, a mandamus may be directed to courts, yet to issue such a writ to an officer for the delivery of a paper is, in effect, the same as to sustain an original action for that paper, and is therefore a matter of original jurisdiction.