Jurisdiction

Legal authority to judge or to act in a given situation or case.

Refers to a court's authority to judge over a dispute usually acquired in one of three ways:

• over acts committed in a defined territory (eg. the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Australia is limited to acts committed or originating in Australia),

• over certain types of cases (the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court is limited to bankruptcy cases), or

• over certain persons (a military court has jurisdiction limited to actions of enlisted personnel).