The president in India's parliamentary system is authorized to promulgate legislation under Article 123. 1 While such legislation, or "ordinances," enjoy the same force and effect as Acts, they are distinct in some ways. First, ordinances lack legislative deliberation: the president promulgates them "except when both Houses of Parliament are in session." Second, it depends on the president's satisfaction that "circumstances exist that render it necessary for him to take immediate action." And they are transient: ordinances cease to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the reassembly of parliament unless withdrawn earlier or formally enacted into law. Ordinances, then, are typical cases of executive legislation. Authored by the Council of Ministers to the exclusion of parliament and discretionarily promulgated into effect by the president, they are products of a parallel-and exceptional-power to legislate. This article is about the judicial review of presidential satisfaction in Article 123. When a president, for whatever reason, promulgates an ordinance into law, is to open to the courts to review that assessment? Consider a parliamentary analogy. When parliament enacts legislation, courts, in India and elsewhere, frequently review their constitutionality. But parliament's assessment that a law is needed is generally considered outside the scope of judicial review. 2 On that, courts express no opinion. With ordinances, the president partially morphs into parliament. Should courts, then, review presidential satisfaction that "circumstances exist that make it necessary … to take immediate action"? In addressing that question, I will begin by arguing that syllogistic reference to presidential satisfaction in other provisions of the Constitution-a common starting point-is conceptually unhelpful. Thereafter, I will identify three argumentative strategies through which judicial review may be interpreted, and in the process introduce the concept of an "intermediate" legislative power-a category that is neither fully executive, nor fully legislative, but with important components of both. In the rest of the article, I will explain the implications of this concept, while examining how Indian decisions have either rejected or impliedly relied on it in addressing the question of judicial review.