Chief Justice

The Chief Justice is the name for the presiding member of a supreme court in many countries with a justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong, the Supreme Court of India, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Supreme Court of Nepal, the Supreme Court of Ireland, the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the High Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of the United States, and provincial or state supreme courts. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the equivalent position is the Lord Chief Justice and in Scotland, the equivalent is the Lord President of the Court of Session.

The Chief Justice can be selected in many ways, but, in many nations, the position is given to the most senior justice of the court, while, in the United States, it is often the President's most important political nomination, subject to approval by the United States Senate. Although the title of this top American jurist is, by statute, Chief Justice of the United States, the term "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court" is often used unofficially.

In some courts, the Chief Justice has a different title, e.g. President of the Supreme Court. In other courts, the title of Chief Justice is used, but the court has a different name, e.g. the Supreme Court of Judicature in colonial (British) Ceylon, and the Maryland Court of Appeals (in the US state of Maryland).

Read more about Chief Justice:  Competence, List of Chief Justice Positions

Famous quotes containing the words chief and/or justice:

    Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit;Mnot to be reckoned one character;Mnot to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    For sov’reign pow’r reign not alone,
    Grace is the partner of the throne;
    Thy grace and justice mighty Lord,
    Shall well divide our last reward.
    Isaac Watts (1674–1748)