A superior court is a government body that hears and decides legal disputes. It is entrusted with the responsibility of administering justice in accordance with the law. Superior courts are part of the civil law system and deal with cases involving civil, criminal, and administrative justice.
The concept of a superior court system usually entails a hierarchy of lower and higher courts; however, some jurisdictions simply use the term as a blanket term. Superior courts, on the other hand, have unrestricted authority, whereas lower courts do not. The majority of lower courts deal with civil or criminal cases that can be appealed to a higher court. These higher courts essentially serve as a check on the lower courts to ensure that justice is administered properly. Superior courts can be found in both the United States and Canada. However, both countries apply the concept in different ways.
Superior courts exist at the provincial and territorial levels in Canada. They deal with civil lawsuits with large claims, criminal prosecutions, and divorces. In addition to this, superior courts in Canada review lower court judgments as well as decisions made government agencies such as labor boards. In larger provinces, certain branches have a complex system of courts that are administered a hierarchy. At this level, the majority of the courts are devoid of lawyers.
California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, Maine, and the District of Columbia all have superior court systems that serve as state trial courts. Other states refer to their judicial systems as circuit or district courts. In Georgia, Maine, and the District of Columbia, each higher court has the authority to hear and decide civil and criminal cases. In these states, lower courts are typically limited to municipal law, traffic issues, and justices of the peace. The superior courts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are primarily based on an appellate system.
California’s system is the most complex of the three. The state’s entire judicial branch was absorbed into the Superior Courts of California system in 1998. Lower and higher courts collaborate using a subdivided partitioning method. In California, each county has a superior court that hears all civil and criminal cases. Six courts of appeal and a single supreme court make up the hierarchy above these. In this way, the name is merely a relic of the past.