Justiciability - in The United States

In The United States

Justiciability is one of several criteria that the United States Supreme Court use to make a judgment granting writ of certiorari ("cert.").

In order for an issue to be justiciable by a United States federal court, all of the following conditions must be met:

• The parties must not be seeking an advisory opinion.
• There must be an actual controversy between the parties, meaning that the parties can not agree to a lawsuit where all parties seek the same particular judgment from the court (known as a collusive suit or friendly suit); rather, the parties must each be seeking a different outcome.
• The question must be neither unripe nor moot.
  • An unripe question is one for which there is not yet at least a threatened injury to the plaintiff, or where all available judicial alternatives have not been exhausted.
  • A moot question is one for which the potential for an injury to occur has ceased to exist, or where the injury has been removed. However, if the issue is likely to reoccur, yet will continually become moot before any challenge can reach a court of competent jurisdiction ("capable of repetition, yet evading review"), courts may allow a case that is moot to be litigated.
• The suit must not be seeking judgment upon a political question.
  • Political questions involve matters where there is:
    • "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department" (meaning that the U.S. 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 issues as whether the nation is 'at war' with another country, or whether the U.S. Senate has properly "tried" an impeached federal officer.

If the case fails to meet any one of these requirements, the court cannot 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.