Supreme court

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In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of a supreme court are binding on all other courts in a nation and are not subject to further review by any other court. Supreme courts typically function primarily as appellate courts, hearing appeals from decisions of lower trial courts, or from intermediate-level appellate courts. A Supreme Court can also, in certain circumstances, act as a court of original jurisdiction, however, this is typically limited to constitutional law.[citation needed]

However, not all highest courts are named as such.

Supreme Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland
, which are all subordinate to higher courts of appeal.

The idea of a supreme court owes much to the framers of the

Framers of the Constitution compromised by sketching only a general outline of the judiciary, vesting of federal judicial power in "one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish".[1][2]
They delineated neither the exact powers and prerogatives of the Supreme Court nor the organization of the Judicial Branch as a whole.

Some countries have multiple "supreme courts" whose respective jurisdictions have different geographical extents, or which are restricted to particular areas of law. Some countries with a

ordinary courts, headed by a supreme administrative court (such as the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, for example). A number of jurisdictions also maintain a separate constitutional court[3] or other judicial or quasi-judicial body (first developed in the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920), such as Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Russia, Spain and South Africa. Within the former British Empire, the highest court within a colony was often called the "Supreme Court", even though appeals could be made from that court to the United Kingdom's Privy Council (based in London). A number of Commonwealth
jurisdictions retain this system, but many others have reconstituted their own highest court as a court of last resort, with the right of appeal to the Privy Council being abolished.

In jurisdictions using a

stare decisis applies, whereby the principles applied by the supreme court in its decisions are binding upon all lower courts; this is intended to apply a uniform interpretation and implementation of the law. In civil law jurisdictions the doctrine of stare decisis is not generally considered to apply, so the decisions of the supreme court are not necessarily binding beyond the immediate case before it; however, in practice the decisions of the supreme court usually provide a very strong precedent, or jurisprudence constante
, for both itself and all lower courts.

Common law jurisdictions

Australia