Justiciability concerns the limits upon legal issues over which a court can exercise its judicial authority. It includes, but is not limited to, the legal concept of standing

Standing (law)

In law, standing or locus standi is the term for the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case...

, which is used to determine if the party bringing the suit is a party appropriate to establishing whether an actual adversarial issue exists. Essentially, justiciability in American law seeks to address whether a court possesses the ability to provide adequate resolution of the dispute; where a court feels it cannot offer such a final determination, the matter is not justiciable.

In the United States

Justiciability is one of several criteria that the United States Supreme Court use to make a judgment granting writ of certiorari ("cert.").

In order for an issue to be justiciable by a United States federal court, all of the following conditions must be met:

• The parties must not be seeking an advisory opinion
  Advisory opinion
  An advisory opinion is an opinion issued by a court that does not have the effect of adjudicating a specific legal case, but merely advises on the constitutionality or interpretation of a law. Some countries have procedures by which the executive or legislative branches may certify important...
  
  .
• There must be an actual controversy between the parties, meaning that the parties can not agree to a lawsuit where all parties seek the same particular judgment from the court (known as a collusive suit or friendly suit
  Friendly suit
  In the United States, a friendly suit is most often used when two parties desire or require judicial recognition of a settlement agreement, and so one sues the other despite the lack of conflict between them....
  
  ); rather, the parties must each be seeking a different outcome.
• The question must be neither unripe
  Ripeness
  In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all." For example, if a law of ambiguous quality has been enacted but never...
  
   nor moot
  Mootness
  In American law, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law...
  
  .
  • An unripe question is one for which there is not yet at least a threatened injury to the plaintiff, or where all available judicial alternatives have not been exhausted.
  • A moot question is one for which the potential for an injury to occur has ceased to exist, or where the injury has been removed. However, if the issue is likely to reoccur, yet will continually become moot before any challenge can reach a court of competent jurisdiction ("capable of repetition, yet evading review"), courts may allow a case that is moot to be litigated.
• The suit must not be seeking judgment upon a political question
  Political question
  In American Constitutional law, the political question doctrine is closely linked to the concept of justiciability, as it comes down to a question of whether or not the court system is an appropriate forum in which to hear the case. This is because the court system only has authority to hear and...
  
  .
  • Political questions involve matters where there is:
    • "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department" (meaning that the U.S. Constitution requires another branch of government to resolve questions regarding the issue); or
    • "a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it."
  • Political questions include such issues as whether the nation is 'at war' with another country, or whether the U.S. Senate has properly "tried" an impeached
    Impeachment
    Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....
    
     federal officer.

If the case fails to meet any one of these requirements, the court cannot hear it.

State

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 courts tend to require a similar set of circumstances, although some states permit their courts to give advisory opinions on questions of law, even though there may be no actual dispute between parties to resolve.

In the United Kingdom

The issue of non-justiciability has been recognized in Buttes Gas, where it was stated that this principle is not a matter of digression, but is 'inherent in the nature of the judicial process'. The principle was further developed in Kuwait Airlines litigation.