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Supreme Court’s New Guidelines: Written Submissions and Hearings
Supreme Court‘s New Guidelines: Written Submissions and Hearings
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States released instructions for the submission of written arguments and compilations before the Constitution Benches and in significant cases that have reached their final hearing.
A standard operating procedure (SOP) for the electronic filing of textual submissions and common compilations of documents, regulations, and precedents is provided by the guidelines. In addition to that, it mandates the establishment of predetermined schedules for the oral arguments in such cases.
In accordance with the norms, the relevant bench will, in advance, appoint a nodal counsel, who will either be an Advocate-on-Record (AoR) or an advocate from each of the two parties.
The nodal counsel is responsible for coordinating with all other attorneys who are involved in the case, compiling and filing in the electronic form five volumes that have been properly indexes, and the following
- Written submissions of petitioners or appellants are included in Volume I. 2.
- Volume II, which contains the written comments of replies
- Documents, which make up the third volume. This will include pleadings, affidavits, and orders that are already a part of the record but are being assembled for easier reference.
- The fourth volume is titled “Research material and statutory enactments.” Statutes, rules, regulations, legislative debates, reports of Commissions, and other types of information like research articles will all be included in this section.
- Precedents, found in Volume V.
It is up to the nodal counsel to decide whether the judgements should be arranged chronologically or according to the subjects they cover.
In addition, solicitors who refer to cases from other countries are required to provide the nodal counsel with PDF versions of the decisions on which they rely. It is necessary to include neutral citations along with the materials that are presented.
The material that both parties have relied on will be included in Volumes III, IV, and V. Only with the permission of the Court will any further written submissions, documents, statutory information, or precedents be added.
Instructions for use with several types of file formats
The instructions also detail the format that will be used for filing the volumes when they are complete.
The only acceptable format for the volumes is PDF, and the Times New Roman font should be set to size 12.5 throughout. It is required that the margins on all sides be adjusted to 2.54 centimetres using the ‘normal’ setting in Microsoft Word.
It is absolutely necessary to keep a line spacing of 2, and the pagination should assure alignment between running page numbers and PDF pages. Bookmarks are required for the document that is in PDF format.
In addition to this, the index needs to have hyperlinks so that referencing may be done quickly and easily. Written arguments are required to prominently display the names of the solicitors representing the parties, as well as the Senior Advocate, if one is appointed.
It is essential to provide unambiguous attribution to the party on whose behalf the submissions are being made.
In the event that the Court agrees to allow the filing of supplementary documents, it is imperative that these supplemental materials be given consecutive page numbers and included into the volume in question.
These papers ought to have a proper index created for them, as well as bookmarks that match to their various sections.
Possible order of events
At the very least five days before to the beginning of the hearing, all of the arguing counsel are required to tell the nodal counsel about the tentative deadlines for their oral arguments through their respective AoR.
Following the preparation and presentation of a statement regarding the proposed deadlines for all lawyers by the nodal counsel, the Court will then establish timelines for oral arguments that all counsel are required to adhere to.
