Certiorari

Certiorari (Latin: "to be more fully informed") is a writ issued by a superior court directing a lower court or tribunal to transmit the record of a case for review. In modern practice, the term is most closely associated with the writ of certiorari used by the Supreme Court of the United States, but variants exist in other common-law jurisdictions, including India, Pakistan, and historically England and Wales (where it was renamed a "quashing order" under the Civil Procedure Rules in 2004).

In the U.S. system, certiorari is the principal mechanism for invoking Supreme Court review. Since the Judiciary Act of 1925 (the "Judges' Bill") and especially after amendments in 1988 that eliminated most mandatory appellate jurisdiction, the Court's docket is almost entirely discretionary. A losing party files a petition for a writ of certiorari ("cert petition"), and the Court grants review only if at least four of the nine Justices vote in favor — the informal Rule of Four. The governing standards are set out in Supreme Court Rule 10, which emphasizes circuit splits, conflicts with state courts of last resort, and questions of national importance. The Court receives roughly 7,000–8,000 petitions per term and typically grants 60–80.

A denial of certiorari ("cert denied") carries no precedential weight and is not a ruling on the merits, as the Court reiterated in Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show (1950). Grants are sometimes accompanied by orders limiting the questions presented, or disposed of summarily through a GVR order (grant, vacate, and remand) when intervening authority warrants reconsideration below.

In administrative-law contexts in India, certiorari is one of the five constitutional writs available under Article 32 (Supreme Court) and Article 226 (High Courts), used to quash decisions of inferior tribunals that exceed jurisdiction or violate natural justice.