judicial review (1851) 1. A court's power to review the actions of other branches or levels of government; esp., the courts' power to invalidate legislative and executive actions as being unconstitutional. 2. The constitutional doctrine providing for this power. 3. A court's review of a lower court's or an administrative body's factual or legal findings. See review (2). Cf. departmentalism; judicial supremacy; popular constitutionalism under constitutionalism.

“The original idea of judicial review seems to have been conceived primarily to preserve the integrity and uphold the independence of the courts as against the other departments, and to preserve and protect certain personal and private rights, such as the right of trial by jury, which were thought to be natural and inalienable.” Charles Grove Haines, Judicial Review of Legislation in the United States and the Doctrines of Vested Rights and of Implied Limitations on Legislatures, 2 Tex. L. Rev. 257, 270 (1924).

Judicial Review,  Black’s Law Dictionary, (12th ed. 2024).