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

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.
181
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

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