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The Georgia Supreme Court only accepts about eight percent of the cases in which a party seeks review of a Georgia Court of Appeals decision. That number may sound low until you compare it to the little more than one percent of the cases that are accepted to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. What determines which cases will be selected, and how does this compare to the Supreme Courts of other countries?
That’s just what Anna Nagaeva, chief counsel to the Supreme Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of the Russian Federation, came to the University of Georgia to find out. Nagaeva and UGA School of Law Associate Professor J. Randy Beck embarked on a two-month comparative analysis of the three courts’ case selection processes.
Nagaeva is a participant in the U.S.-Russia Experts Forum, a joint program of the U.S. Department of State and the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) that aims to promote intensive dialogue and research regarding issues that influence the U.S.-Russia relationship as well as their relationship to the broader international community. Nagaeva was selected from among numerous applicants and arrived at the university to work out of the Dean Rusk Center - International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies earlier this year.
Her interest was a perfect fit for former U.S. Supreme Court clerk Beck, who has had a longstanding interest in Russia. However, it wasn’t just this interest that prompted him to collaborate on the research. He felt the work coincided with a recent trend here at home.
“The exciting thing about the timing of this research is that a number of U.S. Supreme Court justices have recently talked about how important it is for our courts to be learning from foreign courts,” Beck said. “This is not a one-sided process. There are things that we do that are like what other courts do, and we can learn from observing how they do it.”
As far as the similarities in the courts’ case selection processes, Beck and Nagaeva say there appear to be two primary factors that influence which cases the courts select to hear – those cases where the court can maintain uniformity in interpretation of the law and those where the outcome affects many people.
“The case selection process is sort of a rationing exercise in which the courts decide how to wisely allocate limited judicial resources among a wide range of potential cases,” Beck said.
One of the main differences between the Russian and U.S. courts is the manner in which a case is selected.
“In the Supreme Arbitrazh Court of Russia, we consider case selection as part of the judicial process and consider the decision to grant a review as a judicial decision,” Nagaeva said, explaining that a panel of three judges considers each case in which review is sought. U.S. Supreme Court cases, partly because of the difference in size and structure of the court, are initially reviewed by law clerks with the justices evaluating the clerks’ recommendations.
Preliminary findings from the study were presented at a conference in Washington, D.C., in late June, and a final report will be shared at a symposium in Moscow in December.
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UGA law professor Randy Beck and Anna Nagaeva, chief counsel to the Supreme Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of the Russian Federation, are collaborating on research to discern how cases are selected to be heard by high courts in their respective countries, and what that means to the respective judicial processes.
