Restoring the Essential Safeguard: Why the Abbott Test For Preclusion of Judicial Review of Agency Action is an Inadequate Method For Protecting Separation of Powers

• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Date: 01 January 2020

NOTES

Restoring the Essential Safeguard:

Why the Abbott Test for Preclusion of Judicial

Review of Agency Action Is an Inadequate Method

for Protecting Separation of Powers

MICHAEL SEBRING*

ABSTRACT

Judicial review is “an essential safeguard” under the Constitution, allowing

the judiciary to mitigate injuries on citizens by unjust government action.

Throughout the modern era, Congress has passed statutes that allow adminis-

trative agencies to entirely avoid judicial review over their actions, frustrating

the Constitution’s separation of powers design. That design quarantines gov-

ernmental powers among three branches for the purpose of protecting individ-

ual liberty and ensuring its citizens freedom from arbitrary laws, the right to

hold policymakers accountable through elections, and access to an independent

judiciary. The modern administrative state already acts outside this design by

combining judicial, executive, and legislative powers into one political body. By

denying the judiciary its ability to review agency action for constitutional, due

process, ultra vires, and arbitrariness violations, Congress further subverts the

Constitution’s protections.

In light of these purposes, courts should reconsider the Abbott test, which

currently governs whether Congress has validly precluded judicial review over

agency actions. The Abbott test solely considers whether Congress was clear in

its desire to preclude review, placing a presumption against preclusion.

Nowhere are courts permitted to consider the effects on individual liberty or the

threat to separation of powers caused by a Congressional attempt to preclude

judicial review. This paper suggests adding another step to the Abbott test to

rectify the test’s insuff‌iciencies. Rather than stopping at congressional intent,

the court should add a f‌inal step that weighs the interests of judicial review

against the government’s interests in stripping jurisdiction. The new step would

require a judge to weigh the interests of separation of powers and liberty

against the interests of Congress in precluding review. This test properly

focuses the judicial inquiry not onto the bare intention of Congress, but rather

the impact on due process, judicial independence, and potential for permitting

unlawful agency action.

*© 2020, Michael Sebring.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

I. JUSTIFICATIONS AND BENEFITS OF SEPARATION OF POWERS . . . . . . 184

A. Defense Against Arbitrary Lawmaking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

B. Legislative Power Reserved to Democratically Accountable

Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

C. Independent Judiciary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

II. PRECLUSION OF JUDICIAL REVIEW OF AGENCY ACTIONS. . . . . . . . . 187

A. Judicial Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

B. Preclusion of Judicial Review of Agency Action . . . . . . . . . . . 188

C. The Supreme Court Has Acquiesced to the Constitutionality of

Preclusion of Judicial Review over Agency Actions, But

Offers Some Resistance Through the Abbott Test . . . . . . . . . . 190

III. THE CURRENT PRECLUSION TEST INADEQUATELY SAFEGUARDS

SEPARATION OF POWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

A. Judicial Review Is a Critical Component of Separation of

Powers and Its Preclusion Circumvents Separation of Powers

Protections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

B. The Abbott Presumption Inadequately Protects and Addresses

Separation of Powers Concerns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

IV. A NEW STEP: CONSIDERING SEPARATION OF POWERS LIBERTY

INTERESTS IN ASSESSING CONGRESSIONAL PRECLUSION OF

JUDICIAL REVIEW OVER AGENCY ACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

A. The New Test: Weighing Burdens and Interests . . . . . . . . . . . 200

B. Grounding a Judicial Review Balancing Test in the

Constitution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

182 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF LAW & PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 18:181