Discretionary jurisdiction

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Discretionary jurisdiction is a power that allows a court to engage in discretionary review. This power gives a court the authority to decide whether to hear a particular case brought before it. Typically, courts of last resort and intermediate courts in a state or country will have discretionary jurisdiction.^[1] In contrast, the lower courts have no such power. For this reason, the lower courts must entertain any case properly filed, so long as the court has subject matter jurisdiction over the questions of law and in personam jurisdiction over the parties to the case. Customarily a court is granted the power by rule, statute, or constitutional provision. When a constitutional provision establishes the court's power, it will have more limitations on its screening process. The usual intent behind granting power through a constitutional provision is to maintain decisional uniformity.^[1]

The power is coined as “discretionary” because a court may choose whether to accept or deny the petitioner's appeal.^[2] Moreover, discretionary jurisdiction is reactive rather than proactive. In other words, appellate courts do not search for cases review. Rather the court's exercise of discretion is in response to a petitioner's appeal of a lower court's decision or in a motion for rehearing made to the intermediate [appellate] court.^[3] Moreover, the highest [supreme] court's exercise of discretion is similar to the intermediate court, except that a supreme court will grant review at a much smaller percentage. For example, the United States Supreme Court merely grants review for five percent of its requests for discretionary review.