Jurisdiction (area)

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A jurisdiction is an area with a set of laws and under the control of a system of courts or government entity that is different from neighbouring areas. [1] [2] [3]

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Each state in a federation such as Australia, Germany and the United States forms a separate jurisdiction. However, certain laws in a federal state are sometimes uniform across the constituent states and enforced by a set of federal courts; with the result that the federal state forms a single jurisdiction for that purpose.

A jurisdiction may also prosecute for crimes committed outside its jurisdiction once the perpetrator returns. [4] In some cases, a citizen of another jurisdiction outside its own, can be extradited to a jurisdiction in which the crime is illegal even if it was not committed in that jurisdiction. [5] [6]

Unitary state are usually single jurisdictions, but the United Kingdom is a notable exception since it has three separate jurisdictions because of its three separate legal systems. Also, China has the separate jurisdictions of Hong Kong and Macao.

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Further reading

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Jurisdiction is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple levels.

Personal jurisdiction is a court's jurisdiction over the parties, as determined by the facts in evidence, which bind the parties to a lawsuit, as opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction, which is jurisdiction over the law involved in the suit. Without personal jurisdiction over a party, a court's rulings or decrees cannot be enforced upon that party, except by comity; i.e., to the extent that the sovereign which has jurisdiction over the party allows the court to enforce them upon that party. A court that has personal jurisdiction has both the authority to rule on the law and facts of a suit and the power to enforce its decision upon a party to the suit. In some cases, territorial jurisdiction may also constrain a court's reach, such as preventing hearing of a case concerning events occurring on foreign territory between two citizens of the home jurisdiction. A similar principle is that of standing or locus standi, which is the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Article Four of the United States Constitution</span> Portion of the US Constitution regarding states

Article Four of the United States Constitution outlines the relationship between the various states, as well as the relationship between each state and the United States federal government. It also empowers Congress to admit new states and administer the territories and other federal lands.

Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states or international organizations to prosecute individuals for serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crime was committed and irrespective of the accused's nationality or residence. Rooted in the belief that certain offenses are so heinous that they threaten the international community as a whole, universal jurisdiction holds that such acts are beyond the scope of any single nation's laws. Instead, these crimes are considered to violate norms owed to the global community and fundamental principles of international law, making them prosecutable in any court that invokes this principle.

In the United States, a state court is a law court with jurisdiction over disputes with some connection to a U.S. state. State courts handle the vast majority of civil and criminal cases in the United States; the United States federal courts are far smaller in terms of both personnel and caseload, and handle different types of cases. States often provide their trial courts with general jurisdiction and state trial courts regularly have concurrent jurisdiction with federal courts. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and their subject-matter jurisdiction arises only under federal law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes against humanity</span> Concept in international law

Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law and, like other crimes against international law, have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English law</span>

English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extradition</span> Transfer of a suspect from one jurisdiction to another by law enforcement

In an extradition, one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions, and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction.

Extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) is the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its normal boundaries.

Criminal jurisdiction is a term used in constitutional law and public law to describe the power of courts to hear a case brought by a state accusing a defendant of the commission of a crime. It is relevant in three distinct situations:

  1. to regulate the relationship between states, or between one state and another;
  2. where the nation is a federation, to regulate the relationship between the federal courts and the domestic courts of those states comprising the federation; and
  3. where a state only has, to a greater or lesser extent, a single and unified system of law, it is the law of criminal procedure to regulate what cases each classification of court within the judicial system shall adjudicate upon. People must be tried in the same state the crime is committed.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judicial system of Turkey</span>

The judicial system of Turkey is defined by Articles 138 to 160 of the Constitution of Turkey.

In the United States, extradition law is a collection of federal laws that regulate extradition, the formal process by which a fugitive found in the United States is surrendered to another country or state for trial, punishment, or rehabilitation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immunity from prosecution (international law)</span> Doctrine of international law

Immunity from prosecution is a doctrine of international law that allows an accused to avoid prosecution for criminal offences. Immunities are of two types. The first is functional immunity, or immunity ratione materiae. This is an immunity granted to people who perform certain functions of state. The second is personal immunity, or immunity ratione personae. This is an immunity granted to certain officials because of the office they hold, rather than in relation to the act they have committed.

Joe Doherty is an Irish former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980. He was arrested in the United States in 1983, and became a cause célèbre while fighting an ultimately unsuccessful nine-year legal battle against extradition and deportation, with a street corner in New York City being named after him.

The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) is a US non-profit international human rights organization based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1998, CJA represents survivors of torture and other grave human rights abuses in cases against individual rights violators before U.S. and Spanish courts. CJA has pioneered the use of civil litigation in the United States as a means of redress for survivors from around the world.

Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that followed the death of one member of a Native American tribe at the hands of another on reservation land. Crow Dog was a member of the Brulé band of the Lakota Sioux. On August 5, 1881 he shot and killed Spotted Tail, a Lakota chief; there are different accounts of the background to the killing. The tribal council dealt with the incident according to Sioux tradition, and Crow Dog paid restitution to the dead man's family. However, the U.S. authorities then prosecuted Crow Dog for murder in a federal court. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang.

<i>R v Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, ex parte Pinochet</i>

R v Bow St Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate [2000] 1 AC 61, 119 and 147 is a set of three UK constitutional law judgments by the House of Lords that examined whether former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was entitled to claim state immunity from torture allegations made by a Spanish court and therefore avoid extradition to Spain. They have proven to be of landmark significance in international criminal law and human rights law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminal law in the Taney Court</span> Aspect of U.S. judicial history (1836–1864)

The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).

The state of Ireland asserts universal jurisdiction and extraterritorial jurisdiction in various situations. Ireland has universal jurisdiction for murder and manslaughter committed by its citizens. This dates from at least 1829, retained by the Offences against the Person Act 1861, as adapted in 1973.

The First South American Congress of Private International Law was an international congress on private international law and an ad-hoc codifier forum of international conflict of laws treaties held in Montevideo from 25 August 1888 to 18 February 1889, in which eight treaties and an additional protocol were passed that covered practically all the subjects of conflicts of laws of that time. These were one of the first treaties on conflict of laws to come into force in the world.

References

  1. Lehman, Jeffrey; Phelps, Shirelle (2005). West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Vol. 6 (2 ed.). Detroit: Thomson/Gale. p. 293. ISBN   9780787663742.
  2. Declining jurisdiction in private international law : reports to the XIVth Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Athens, August 1994. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1995. ISBN   019825959X.
  3. Acheson, Nicholas V.; Williamson, Arthur P. (January 2007). "Civil society in multi-level public policy: the case of Ireland's two jurisdictions". Policy & Politics. 35 (1). Policy Press: 25. doi:10.1332/030557307779657711.
  4. Surdin, Ashley (2009-09-01). "3 Americans Charged With Traveling to Cambodia for Sex With Children". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2018-03-11.
  5. "Copyright Infringement: British Man Faces Extradition To U.S." Deadline. 2012-01-14. Retrieved 2018-03-11.
  6. "New web law - Man extradited to foreign prison for web site content". www.dba-oracle.com. Retrieved 2018-03-11.