law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

, a majority opinion is a

judicial opinion A judicial opinion is a form of legal opinion written by a judge or a judicial panel in the course of resolving a legal dispute, providing the decision reached to resolve the dispute, and usually indicating the facts which led to the dispute and ...

agreed to by more than half of the members of a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision. Not all cases have a majority opinion. At times, the

justices A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

voting for a majority decision (e.g., to affirm or reverse the

lower court A lower court or inferior court is a court from which an appeal may be taken, usually referring to courts other than supreme court. In relation to an appeal from one court to another, the lower court is the court whose decision is being reviewed ...

's decision) may have drastically different reasons for their votes, and cannot agree on the same set of reasons. In that situation, several

concurring opinion In law, a concurring opinion is in certain legal systems a written opinion by one or more judges of a court which agrees with the decision made by the majority of the court, but states different (or additional) reasons as the basis for their deci ...

s may be written, none of which is the view of a majority of the members of the court. Therefore, the concurring opinion joined by the greatest number of judges is referred to as the

plurality opinion A plurality opinion is in certain legal systems the opinion from one or more judges or justices of an appellate court which provides the rationale for the disposition of an appeal when no single opinion received the support of a majority of th ...

. Normally,

appellate courts A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

(or panels) are staffed with an odd number of judges to avoid a tie. Sometimes, and in some

jurisdictions Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...

, when judicial positions are vacant or a judge has

recuse Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applica ...

d themselves from the case, the court may be stuck with a tie, in which case the lower court's decision will be affirmed without comment by an equally divided court. A majority opinion in countries which use the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

system becomes part of the body of

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a l ...

Majority opinions by region

There is a key stylistic difference between the United States on the one hand, and the United Kingdom and other common law countries on the other. In the United States, the disposition of an appeal in a majority opinion is usually drafted in the present tense, so that the disposition is itself a

performative utterance In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing. In a 1955 lecture series, later published as ''How to Do ...

. That is, a U.S. court will say that "we affirm (or reverse)" the lower court's decision, or, "the decision of the

ower court Ower is a hamlet in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. Its nearest towns are Totton – approximately to the southeast, and Romsey – around to the north-east. Ower lies on the A36 road northwest of Totton. It lies mostly ...

is hereby affirmed (or reversed)." By saying so, the court does so. In the United Kingdom and many other common law countries, the disposition in a majority opinion is phrased in the

future tense In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

as a recommendation. For example, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom end a majority opinion by stating that "I would dismiss the appeal" or "I would allow the appeal," while the Justices of the

High Court of Australia The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises Original jurisdiction, original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Constitution of Australia, Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established fol ...

end a majority opinion by stating that "the appeal should be dismissed" or "the appeal should be allowed." The main reason for phrasing dispositions as recommendations is that historically, the highest court in the United Kingdom was the

Appellate Committee of the House of Lords Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, it for many centuries had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachments, ...

, which adhered to the

legal fiction A legal fiction is a fact assumed or created by courts, which is then used in order to help reach a decision or to apply a legal rule. The concept is used almost exclusively in common law jurisdictions, particularly in England and Wales. Deve ...

that its opinions were merely speeches delivered in debate in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

, upon motion by a member of the Appellate Committee to consider its "report" on a particular legal matter. Although the actual reading of such speeches was abandoned in 1963, the motion to consider the Committee's report was always immediately followed by '' seriatim'' motions to "agree to" the Committee's report, to dispose of the matter as recommended, and to award costs as recommended. There was no final decision binding upon the parties until the House of Lords had formally exercised

parliamentary sovereignty Parliamentary sovereignty, also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy, is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all ...

by voting on such ''pro forma'' motions to accept the Committee's recommendations. In contrast, U.S. judges are not mere appendages of royal authority; as expressly envisioned by

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charlest ...

Federalist No. 78 Federalist No. 78 is an essay by Alexander Hamilton, the seventy-eighth of ''The Federalist Papers''. Like all of ''The Federalist'' papers, it was published under the pseudonym Publius. Titled "The Judiciary Department", Federalist No. 78 wa ...

, they act directly as agents of the true sovereign, the people. American dissenting and concurring opinions are sometimes partially drafted in the future tense, since they are speaking in terms of hypothetical situations that will not occur, as opposed to what the majority is doing in its opinion. However, even dissenting opinions may end in a present tense performative utterance, which is usually some variation on the phrase "I respectfully dissent." In some courts, such as the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, the majority opinion may be broken down into numbered or lettered sections. This allows judges who write an opinion "concurring in part" or "

dissenting Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

in part" to easily identify which parts they join with the majority, and which sections they do not.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Majority Opinion Judicial legal terminology Common law legal terminology