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Jurisdiction stripping


In the United States, jurisdiction-stripping (also called court-stripping or curtailment-of-jurisdiction), refers to Congress' constitutionally-granted authority to determine the jurisdiction of federal and state courts.

Congress may define the jurisdiction of the judiciary through the simultaneous use of two powers. First, Congress holds the power to create (and, implicitly, to define the jurisdiction of) federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court (i.e. Courts of Appeals, District Courts, and various other Article I and Article III tribunals). This court-creating power is granted both in the congressional powers clause (Art. I, § 8, Cl. 9) and in the judicial vesting clause (Art. III, § 1). Second, Congress has the power to make exceptions to and regulations of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This court-limiting power is granted in the Exceptions Clause (Art. III, § 2). By exercising these powers in concert, Congress may effectively eliminate any judicial review of certain federal legislative or executive actions and of certain state actions, or alternatively transfer the judicial review responsibility to state courts by "knocking [federal courts]...out of the game."

Alexander Hamilton had this to say about the issue in The Federalist:

From this review of the particular powers of the federal judiciary, as marked out in the Constitution, it appears that they are all conformable to the principles which ought to have governed the structure of that department, and which were necessary to the perfection of the system. If some partial inconveniences should appear to be connected with the incorporation of any of them into the plan, it ought to be recollected that the national legislature will have ample authority to make such exceptions, and to prescribe such regulations as will be calculated to obviate or remove these inconveniences.


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