Of Presidents and Precedents: The Role of Judicial Review in Recent Presidential Elections in Peru, Costa Rica, and the United States

In this Essay, I describe and analyze the role of judicial review in three relatively recent bids for presidential election or reelection. In 1996-97, the Peruvian Constitutional Court attempted unsuccessfully to exercise judicial review in a way that would have prevented then-President Fujimori from running for reelection. In 2003, the Sala Constitucional de la Corte Suprema de Justicia (Sala IV), ruled that a constitutional provision prohibiting the reelection of a former president was unconstitutional, therefore paving the way for Oscar Arias’s recent, successful run for reelection as President of Costa Rica. And in 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in the election for U.S. President and effectively decided that George W. Bush won an extremely close election.

These very different cases teach some interesting lessons about, on the one hand, the need for effective judicial review and, on the other, the need for limits on judicial review in democracies.