The Dubious Concept of Jurisdiction

28 Pages Posted: 29 Feb 2004

Abstract

The conventional wisdom about jurisdiction is based on a false premise - that the true concept of jurisidiction is distinct from the true concept of the merits. According to this wisdom, if a judge is smart enough and searches hard enough, he or she can always distinguish issues that are jurisdictional from issues that go only to the merits. By the same token, this wisdom holds that every legal issue is either jurisdictional or non-jurisdictional. This paper argues that the conventional wisdom is wrong - that there can be no hard conceptual difference between jurisdiction and the merits. The line between jurisdictional issues and merits issues is always at some level arbitrary. Furthermore, the conventional wisdom is dangerous because it indoctrinates judges to think that the only issue is whether they can exercise their ability to do justice rather than whether they should exercise that ability.

Suggested Citation

Lee, Evan Tsen, The Dubious Concept of Jurisdiction. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=510384

Evan Tsen Lee (Contact Author)

UC Law, San Francisco ( email )

200 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
156
Abstract Views
2,535
Rank
341,599
PlumX Metrics