When is a court's action on a law typically based on the rational basis test?

The rational basis test is a standard used by courts to evaluate the constitutionality of a law that does not involve a suspect classification or the infringement of fundamental rights. This test is typically applied in situations where the law in question relates to economic regulations or social policies that differentiate between groups without implicating deeply held rights or equal protection principles.

In this context, when a law differentiates between groups, it is often subjected to the rational basis test. This means that the law is presumed to be constitutional as long as it has a reasonable relationship to a legitimate government interest. The rationale behind this is that the government has broad discretion to create laws that affect social and economic policy, and as long as the means chosen to achieve the ends are rational, the court will generally uphold the law.

In contrast, scenarios involving fundamental rights or free speech are subjected to stricter standards of review, such as strict scrutiny or intermediate scrutiny, which require a higher justification for the law's enactment. Laws that heavily impact fundamental rights or target specific, historically disadvantaged groups require more compelling justification than laws that simply differentiate among various classes or categories in a society.