The Supreme Court, as well as being the final court of appeal, plays an important role in the development of United Kingdom law.
As an appeal court, The Supreme Court cannot consider a case unless a relevant order has been made in a lower court.
The Supreme Court:
- is the final court of appeal for all United Kingdom civil cases, and criminal cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland
- hears appeals on arguable points of law of general public importance
- concentrates on cases of the greatest public and constitutional importance
- maintains and develops the role of the highest court in the United Kingdom as a leader in the common law world
The Supreme Court hears appeals from the following courts in each jurisdiction:
England and Wales
- The Court of Appeal, Civil Division
- The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
- (in some limited cases) the High Court
Scotland
Click here to download a factual guide to The Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in Scottish Appeals: Human rights and the Scotland Act 2012 (PDF).
Northern Ireland
- The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland
- (in some limited cases) the High Court
Please click here to download a full guide to appealing to The Supreme Court (PDF) or our Guide to proceedings for those without a legal representative.
Learn more about The Supreme Court.
Article III of the Constitution establishes the federal judiciary. Article III, Section I states that "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Although the Constitution establishes the Supreme Court, it permits Congress to decide how to organize it. Congress first exercised this power in the Judiciary Act of 1789. This Act created a Supreme Court with six justices. It also established the lower federal court system.
The Justices
Over the years, various Acts of Congress have altered the number of seats on the Supreme Court, from a low of five to a high of 10. Shortly after the Civil War, the number of seats on the Court was fixed at nine. Today, there is one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court. Like all federal judges, justices are appointed by the President and are confirmed by the Senate. They, typically, hold office for life. The salaries of the justices cannot be decreased during their term of office. These restrictions are meant to protect the independence of the judiciary from the political branches of government.
The Court's Jurisdiction
Article III, Section II of the Constitution establishes the jurisdiction (legal ability to hear a case) of the Supreme Court. The Court has original jurisdiction (a case is tried before the Court) over certain cases, e.g., suits between two or more states and/or cases involving ambassadors and other public ministers. The Court has appellate jurisdiction (the Court can hear the case on appeal) on almost any other case that involves a point of constitutional and/or federal law. Some examples include cases to which the United States is a party, cases involving Treaties, and cases involving ships on the high seas and navigable waterways (admiralty cases).
Cases
When exercising its appellate jurisdiction, the Court, with a few exceptions, does not have to hear a case. The Certiorari Act of 1925 gives the Court the discretion to decide whether or not to do so. In a petition for a writ of certiorari, a party asks the Court to review its case. The Supreme Court agrees to hear about 100-150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review each year.
Judicial Review
The best-known power of the Supreme Court is judicial review, or the ability of the Court to declare a Legislative or Executive act in violation of the Constitution, is not found within the text of the Constitution itself. The Court established this doctrine in the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803).
In this case, the Court had to decide whether an Act of Congress or the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus (legal orders compelling government officials to act in accordance with the law). A suit was brought under this Act, but the Supreme Court noted that the Constitution did not permit the Court to have original jurisdiction in this matter. Since Article VI of the Constitution establishes the Constitution as the Supreme Law of the Land, the Court held that an Act of Congress that is contrary to the Constitution could not stand. In subsequent cases, the Court also established its authority to strike down state laws found to be in violation of the Constitution.
Before the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (1869), the provisions of the Bill of Rights were only applicable to the federal government. After the Amendment's passage, the Supreme Court began ruling that most of its provisions were applicable to the states as well. Therefore, the Court has the final say over when a right is protected by the Constitution or when a Constitutional right is violated.
Role
The Supreme Court plays a very important role in our constitutional system of government. First, as the highest court in the land, it is the court of last resort for those looking for justice. Second, due to its power of judicial review, it plays an essential role in ensuring that each branch of government recognizes the limits of its own power. Third, it protects civil rights and liberties by striking down laws that violate the Constitution. Finally, it sets appropriate limits on democratic government by ensuring that popular majorities cannot pass laws that harm and/or take undue advantage of unpopular minorities. In essence, it serves to ensure that the changing views of a majority do not undermine the fundamental values common to all Americans, i.e., freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and due process of law.
Impact
The decisions of the Supreme Court have an important impact on society at large, not just on lawyers and judges. The decisions of the Court have a profound impact on high school students. In fact, several landmark cases decided by the Court have involved students, e.g., Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969) held that students could not be punished for wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. In the Tinker case, the Court held that "students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate."
DISCLAIMER: These resources are created by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for educational purposes only. They may not reflect the current state of the law, and are not intended to provide legal advice, guidance on litigation, or commentary on any pending case or legislation.
Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of IowaChairman, Senate Committee on the JudiciaryThe Role of Supreme Court Justices
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Mr. President, the next Supreme Court Justice could dramatically change the direction of the Court. And the majority of this body believes the American people shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to weigh in on this question.
We believe there should be a debate about the role of Supreme Court Justices in our constitutional system.
With that in mind, I wanted to spend a few minutes discussing the appropriate role of the Court.
Before I turn to that, I’d note that the Minority Leader continues his daily missives on the Supreme Court vacancy. Most of us around here take what he says with a grain of salt. So, I’m not going to waste time responding to everything he says. I’ll just note that this is what he said in 2005 when the other side was filibustering a number of Circuit court nominations, and a few months before they filibustered the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court:
“The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.”
With that, I’ll turn to the appropriate role of a Justice under our Constitution.
Mr. President, part of what makes America an exceptional nation is our founding document. It’s the oldest written Constitution in the world.
It created a functioning republic, provided stability, protected individual rights, and was structured so that different branches and levels of government can resist encroachment into their areas of responsibility. A written Constitution contains words with fixed meanings. The Constitution, and in many ways the nation, has survived because we have remained true to those words. And our constitutional republic is ultimately safeguarded by a Supreme Court that enforces the Constitution and its text. Our Constitution creates a republic where the people decide who will govern them, and by what rules. The Supreme Court can override the people’s wishes only where the Constitution prohibits what the people’s elected officials have enacted. Otherwise, the Court’s rulings are improper.
Stated differently, the Justices aren’t entitled to displace the democratic process with their own views.
Where the Constitution is silent, the people decide how they will be governed. This fundamental feature of our republic is critical to preserving liberty.
The temptation to apply their own views rather than the Constitution has always lurked among the Justices. This led to the Dred Scott decision. It led to striking down many economic regulations early in the last century.
And Americans know all too well in recent decades that the Supreme Court has done this regularly.
Justice Scalia believed that to ensure objectivity rather than subjectivity in judicial decision-making, the Constitution must be read according to its text and its original meaning as understood at the time those words were written.
The Constitution is law, and it has meaning. Otherwise, what the court offers is merely politics, masquerading as constitutional law.
Justice Scalia wrote that the rule of law is a law of rules. Law is NOT Justices reading their own policy preferences into the Constitution.
It’s not a multi-factor balancing test untethered to the text. We all know that Justices apply these balancing tests to reach their preferred policy results.
The court is not, and should not, be engaged in a continuing Constitutional Convention designed to update our founding document to conform with the Justices’ personal policy preferences.
The Constitution is not a “living” document. The danger with any Justice who believes they are entitled to ‘update’ the Constitution, is that they will always update it to conform with their own views.
That’s not the appropriate role of a Justice. As Justice Scalia put it, “The-times-they-are-a-changin’ is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty.”
Now, when conservatives say the role of Justices is to interpret the Constitution and not to legislate from the bench, we’re stating a view as old as the Constitution itself. The Framers separated the powers of the federal government.
In Federalist 78, Hamilton wrote, “The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.” It’s up to elected representatives, who are accountable to the people, to make the law. It’s up to the courts to interpret it.
These views of the judicial role under the Constitution were once widely held. But beginning with the Warren Court of the 1960’s, the concept took hold that the Justices were change agents for society. Democracy was messy and slow. It was much easier for Justices to impose their will on society in the guise of constitutional interpretation.
Acting as a super-legislature was so much more powerful than deciding cases by reading the legal text and the record.
The view took hold that a Justice could vote on a legal question just as he or she would vote as a legislator. Perhaps the Framers underestimated what Federalist 78 called the “least dangerous branch,” one that “can take no active resolution whatever.”
Since the days of the Warren Court, this activist approach has been common: striking down as unconstitutional laws that the Constitution doesn’t even address.
Now, to his credit, President Obama has been explicit in his view that Justices aren’t bound by the law.
While he usually pays lip service to the traditional, limited and proper role of the court to decide cases based on law and facts, he is always quick to add that on the tough cases, a judge should look to her “heart,” or rely on “empathy.”
The President’s ‘empathy standard’ is completely inconsistent with the judicial duty to be impartial. Asking a Justice to consider empathy in deciding cases is asking a Justice to rule based on his or her own, personal notion of right and wrong, rather than law.
As I’ve said, everyone knows this President won’t be filling the current vacancy. Nonetheless, the President has indicated he intends to submit a nomination.
That’s ok. He’s constitutionally empowered to make the nomination. And the Senate holds the constitutional power to withhold consent, as we will.
But as we debate the proper role of the court, and what type of Justice the next President should nominate, it’s instructive to examine what the President says he’s looking for in a nominee.
The President made clear his nominee, whoever it is, won’t decide cases only on the law or the Constitution. He wrote that in “cases that reach the Supreme Court in which the law is not clear,” the Justice should apply his or her “life experience.”
This, of course, is just an updated version of the same standard we’ve heard from this President before.
It’s the ‘empathy’ standard.
Of course, a Justice who reaches decisions based on “empathy” or “life experience” has a powerful incentive to read every case as unclear, so they have a free hand to rely on their “life experiences” to reach ‘just’ outcomes.
The President also said any Justice he’d nominate would consider “the way [the law] affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times. That, I believe, is an essential element for arriving at just decisions and fair outcomes.”
With all respect to the President, any nominee who supports this approach is advocating an illegitimate role for the court.
It’s flatly not legitimate for any Justice to apply his or her own personal views of justice and fairness.
Perhaps most troubling is the President’s statement that any nominee of his must “arrive[] at just decisions and fair outcomes.” That’s the very definition of results-oriented judging. And it flies in the face of a judge as a fair, neutral, and totally objective decision-maker in any particular case.
A Justice is to question assumptions and apply rigorous scrutiny to the arguments the parties advance, as did Justice Scalia.
Under the President’s approach a Justice will always “arrive” where he or she started.
That isn’t judging. That’s a super-legislator in a black robe.
In our history, regrettably, we’ve had Justices who embraced this conception. Chief Justice Warren was infamous for asking, “Is it just? Is it fair?” without any reference to law, when he voted.
Justice Scalia’s entire tenure on the Court was devoted to ending this misplaced and improper approach.
In reality, a Justice is no more entitled to force another American to adhere to his or her own moral views or life experiences, than any other ordinary American.
Imposition of such personal biases subjects citizens to decrees from on high that they can’t change, except through constitutional amendment. And those decrees are imposed by officials they can’t vote out of office.
This is not the constitutional republic the Framers created.
The American people deserve the opportunity during this election year to weigh in on whether our next Justice should apply the text of the Constitution, or alternatively, whether a Justice should rely on his or her own “life experiences” and personal sense of right and wrong to arrive at “just decisions and fair outcomes.”
Senate Republicans will ensure the American people aren’t denied this unique and historic opportunity.
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