Advisory Opinion

An advisory opinion is an opinion issued by a court or a commission like an election commission that does not have the effect of adjudicating a specific legal case, but merely advises on the constitutionality or interpretation of a law. Some countries have procedures by which the executive or legislative branches may certify important questions to the judiciary and obtain an advisory opinion. In other countries or specific jurisdictions, courts may be prohibited from issuing advisory opinions.

Famous quotes containing the words advisory and/or opinion:

    At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.
    —Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)

    If in the opinion of the Tsars authors were to be the servants of the state, in the opinion of the radical critics writers were to be the servants of the masses. The two lines of thought were bound to meet and join forces when at last, in our times, a new kind of regime the synthesis of a Hegelian triad, combined the idea of the masses with the idea of the state.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)