Justiciability
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In civil procedure, a justiciable dispute is one that is appropriate for judicial resolution. Although separate from questions of jurisdiction, recent Supreme Court opinions have indicated that certain aspects of justiciability are closely tied to, if not coextensive with, questions of jurisdiction. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 347 n.1 (1996); United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 742 (1995).
In order for an issue to be justiciable by a United States federal court, all of the following conditions must be met:
- There must be an actual controversy between the parties - see Muskrat v. United States,
- This means that the parties can not agree to a lawsuit where both parties seek a particular judgment from the court; rather, the parties have to each be seeking a different outcome.
- The plaintiff(s) must have standing to sue - see Allen v. Wright,
- In order to have standing:
- the plaintiff must be a party who has been or will be harmed if no remedy is provided (injury-in-fact)
- the defendant must be a party to whom the harm can be traced (causation); and
- the court must have the ability to provide a remedy that will relieve the harm to the plaintiff (redressability)
- Note that standing is conferred very narrowly when the plaintiff's alleged harm results only from being a taxpayer
- In order to have standing:
- The question must be neither unripe nor moot - see Poe v. Ullman, ; DeFunis v. Odegaard,
- An unripe question is one for which there is not yet at least a threatened injury to the plaintiff.
- A moot question is one for which the potential for an injury to occur has ceased to exist.
- The court must not be asked to resolve a political question - see Nixon v. United States,
- Political questions involve matters where there is
- "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department" (meaning that the Constitution requires another branch of government to resolve questions regarding the issue); or
- "a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it"
- Political questions include such things as whether the nation is 'at war' with another country, or whether the U.S. Senate has properly "tried" an impeached federal officer.
- Political questions involve matters where there is
If the case fails to meet any of these requirements, the court can not and will not hear it.
State courts tend to require a similar set of circumstances, although some states permit their courts to give advisory opinions on questions of law, even though there may be no actual dispute between parties to resolve.
