The '''supreme court''' in some countries, provinces, and states, functions as a '''court of last resort''' whose rulings cannot be challenged. In the United States, for example, there is a federal Supreme Court as well as supreme courts within most of the states. However, some jurisdictions do not use the phrase "Supreme Court" in naming their highest courts, and some jurisdictions use this phrase to name courts which are not their highest courts, as described below. Although some countries and subordinate states follow the American model of having a supreme court that interprets that jurisdiction's constitution, others follow the Austrian model of a separate constitutional court (first developed in the Austrian Constitution of 1920).
Furthermore, in some countries, such as Finland, there is no constitutional court; the constitutionality of a law is implicit and cannot be challenged. Furthermore, in e.g. Finland and Poland, there is a separate Supreme Administrative Court whose decisions are final and whose jurisdiction does not overlap with the Supreme Court.
Many higher courts create through their decisions case law applicable within their respective jurisdictions or interpret codal provisions in civil-law countries to maintain a uniform interpretation:
* Most common law nations have the doctrine of ''stare decisis'' in which the rulings (decisions) of higher courts constitute binding precedent upon courts of equal or lower status within their jurisdiction.
* Most civil law (legal system) nations do not have the official doctrine of ''stare decisis'' and hence the rulings of the supreme court are usually not binding outside the immediate case in question. However, in practice, the precedent, or ''jurisprudence'', expressed by those courts is often extremely strong. Some exceptions such as Spain are discussed below.
Common law jurisdictions
Australia
The High Court of Australia became the court of last resort with the passing of the Australia Act in 1986. This act abolished the last rights of appeal to the Privy Council.
Each state and territory has its own Supreme Court, which leads to some confusion among those from other jurisdictions as the term "supreme court" seems to refer to the court of last resort. The reason that the High Court of Australia is not named the 'supreme court' is purely historical. Before the federation of the Australian colonies as states of Australia (in 1901), each colony had its own independent judicial system with a supreme court as the highest court physically within the colony (with a right of appeal to the Privy Council). On federation, the constitution provided for the establishment of the 'High Court' which could hear appeals from the state Supreme Courts.
Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada was established in 1875
