The political question doctrine is the judicial principle that a court should refuse to decide on an issue involving the exercise of discretionary power by the executive or legislative branch of government. As a rebuttable"natural presumption", the political question is exempt from judicial review. The political question doctrine was originated from the elaboration of the"particular provisions" in the Constitution by the Federalists. Depending on whether the waiver of the judicial review power is based on the text, structure and history of the Constitution itself or on other prudential considerations, the political question doctrine may be classified into the classic form and the prudential form. In order to solve the operational problems caused by such classification, Justice Brennan summarized six features of the"political question" in Baker v. Carr, thus providing the criteria for ascertaining political questions.However, when the courts applied the six criteria to specific cases, the circular dilemma that was produced in the process of judgment rendered such criteria unable to distinguish"political" questions from"legal" questions effectively. In addition, scholars have questioned the rationality of having such a doctrine, since judicial review has been established firmly as a cornerstone in constitutional law. Consequently, the political question doctrine in general in on the decline, with its classic form being substantially changed, and its prudential form graduating away.Therefore, the political question doctrine should be reconstructed. Scholars have provided some foundation in this regard when they suggest reconstructing the doctrine with such terms as"autonomous determination","self-monitoring" and"self-enforcing". This also indicates that we might reconstruct the political question doctrine on the basis of the incentive-compatible theory, which might help to respond to challenges to the theoretical foundation of the exemption of political questions from judicial review. |