Maduro also had the option of referring the legislation to the Supreme Court for review of its constitutionality.
Its functions include judicial review of the constitutionality of laws and regulations and the resolution of judicial conflicts among the courts.
Cheryl Saunders, the foundation director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at the University of Melbourne law school, said there were "considerable problems with the drafting of the bill" and a "real likelihood of judicial review of the constitutionality".
Last year, the Supreme Court threw out a challenge to the law — without any review of its constitutionality — because the plaintiffs, a group of Americans who communicate with people overseas, could not prove that they had come under surveillance.
In the most recent, he accused the state of Missouri of hiding "behind the hangman's cloak by refusing to disclose pertinent information to the inmates … It is fundamentally important the state is sufficiently transparent about its protocol to allow adequate review of the constitutionality of its chosen method".
"The longstanding, historical position of the United States regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation has not changed," Mr. Holder wrote, adding that he was unaware of any case in which the Justice Department had asked a court to reconsider or limit the court's power in this regard.
Throughout the spring, whenever President Kumaratunga declared herself ready to negotiate such an accord, the J.V.P. denounced her as a traitor; and when at last she succumbed to international pressure and agreed, in June, to an aid partnership with the Tigers, the J.V.P. quit the ruling coalition and persuaded the Supreme Court to suspend the pact, pending a review of its constitutionality.
Cardinal laws can be reviewed for constitutionality by the Constitutional Court while constitutional provisions cannot except in purely formal terms.
The ruling was simultaneously modest and significant, and its recalibration of how courts review the constitutionality of race-conscious decisions by the government will reverberate beyond higher education.
"Where a plaintiff properly invokes the jurisdiction of a court and presents a justiciable challenge, there is no dispute that courts properly review the constitutionality of acts of Congress," Mr. Holder wrote.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration stipulated the incontestable to a disgruntled federal court on Thursday, formally declaring that "the power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute".
