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== Judiciary == | == Judiciary == | ||
''Further reading: [[Supreme Court of the United Republic]]'' | |||
The Judiciary, under Article III of the United Republic Constitution, explains and applies the laws. This branch does this by hearing and eventually making decisions on various legal cases. | |||
===Overview=== | |||
Article III section I of the Constitution establishes the [[Supreme Court of the United Republic]] and authorizes the United Republic Parliament to establish inferior courts as their need shall arise. Section I also establishes a lifetime tenure for all federal judges and states that their compensation may not be diminished during their time in office. Article II section II establishes that all federal judges are to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the United Republic Senate. | |||
The Judiciary Act of 1689 subdivided the nation jurisdictionally into judicial districts and created federal courts for each district. The three tiered structure of this act established the basic structure of the national judiciary: the Supreme Court, 13 courts of appeals, 99 district courts, and three courts of special jurisdiction. Parliament retains the power to re-organize or even abolish federal courts lower than the Supreme Court. | |||
The U.R. Supreme Court decides "cases and controversies"—matters pertaining to the federal government, disputes between states, and interpretation of the United Republic Constitution, and, in general, can declare legislation or executive action made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions, all via the power of judicial review. Below the U.R. Supreme Court are the United Republic Courts of Appeals, and below them in turn are the United Republic District Courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law, and for certain controversies between litigants who are not deemed citizens of the same province ("diversity jurisdiction"). | |||
There are three levels of federal courts with general jurisdiction, meaning that these courts handle criminal cases and civil lawsuits between individuals. Other courts, such as the bankruptcy courts and the Tax Court, are specialized courts handling only certain kinds of cases ("subject matter jurisdiction"). The Bankruptcy Courts are "under" the supervision of the district courts, and, as such, are not considered part of the "Article III" judiciary. Also as such, their judges do not have lifetime tenure, nor are they Constitutionally exempt from diminution of their remuneration. The Tax Court is not an Article III court (but is, instead an "Article I Court"). | |||
The district courts are the trial courts wherein cases that are considered under the Judicial Code (Title 27, United Republic Code) consistent with the jurisdictional precepts of "federal question jurisdiction" and "diversity jurisdiction" and "pendent jurisdiction" can be filed and decided. The district courts can also hear cases under "removal jurisdiction", wherein a case brought in Provincial court meets the requirements for diversity jurisdiction, and one party litigant chooses to "remove" the case from provincial court to federal court. | |||
The United Republic Courts of Appeals are appellate courts that hear appeals of cases decided by the district courts, and some direct appeals from administrative agencies, and some interlocutory appeals. The U.R. Supreme Court hears appeals from the decisions of the courts of appeals or provincial supreme courts, and in addition has original jurisdiction over a few cases. | |||
The judicial power extends to cases arising under the Constitution, an Act of Parliament; a U.R. treaty; cases affecting ambassadors, ministers and consuls of foreign countries in the U.R.; cases and controversies to which the federal government is a party; controversies between provinces (or their citizens) and foreign nations (or their citizens or subjects); and bankruptcy cases (collectively "federal-question jurisdiction"). The Eleventh Amendment removed from federal jurisdiction cases in which citizens of one province were the plaintiffs and the government of another province was the defendant. It did not disturb federal jurisdiction in cases in which a provincial government is a plaintiff and a citizen of another state the defendant. | |||
The power of the federal courts extends both to civil actions for damages and other redress, and to criminal cases arising under federal law. The interplay of the Supremacy Clause and Article III has resulted in a complex set of relationships between provincial and federal courts. Federal courts can sometimes hear cases arising under provincial law pursuant to diversity jurisdiction, provincial courts can decide certain matters involving federal law, and a handful of federal claims are primarily reserved by federal statute to the provincial courts. Both court systems thus can be said to have exclusive jurisdiction in some areas and concurrent jurisdiction in others. | |||
The U.R. Constitution safeguards judicial independence by providing that federal judges shall hold office "during good behavior"; in practice, this usually means they serve until they die, retire, or resign. A judge who commits an offense while in office may be impeached in the same way as the president or other officials of the federal government. U.R. judges are appointed by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate. Another Constitutional provision prohibits Parliament from reducing the pay of any Article III judge (Parliament is able to set a lower salary for all future judges that take office after the reduction, but may not decrease the rate of pay for judges already in office). | |||
====Relationships between provincial and federal courts==== | |||
Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the court systems of each province, each dealing with, in addition to federal law when not deemed preempted, a province's own laws, and having its own court rules and procedures. Although provincial governments and the federal government are legally dual sovereigns, the Supreme Court of the United Republic is in many cases the appellate court from the Provincial Supreme Courts (e.g., absent the Court countenancing the applicability of the doctrine of adequate and independent Province grounds). The Supreme Courts of each province are by this doctrine the final authority on the interpretation of the applicable province's laws and Constitution. Many provincial constitution provisions are equal in breadth to those of the U.R. Constitution, but are considered "parallel" (thus, where, for example, the right to privacy pursuant to a provincial constitution is broader than the federal right to privacy, and the asserted ground is explicitly held to be "independent", the question can be finally decided in a Provincial Supreme Court—the U.R. Supreme Court will decline to take jurisdiction). | |||
A Provincial Supreme Court, other than of its own accord, is bound only by the U.R. Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law, but is not bound by interpretation of federal law by the federal court of appeals for the federal circuit in which the province is included, or even the federal district courts located in the province, a result of the dual sovereigns concept. Conversely, a federal district court hearing a matter involving only a question of provincial law must apply the substantive law of the province in which the court sits, a result of the application of the Davis Doctrine; however, at the same time, the case is heard under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence instead of provincial procedural rules. Together, the laws of the federal and provincial governments form U.R. law. | |||
== Budget == | == Budget == | ||
TBA | TBA | ||