What is Commonwealth Court?
Commonwealth Court is a special appellate court in Pennsylvania that is laterally equal to the Superior Court. The next court of appeals in Pennsylvania for both the Commonwealth Court and the Superior Court is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
The function and role of the Commonwealth is generally to operate as an appellate court for agency level complaints. For example, if you were to challenge your criminal history and you were unhappy with your challenge, you could appeal the challenge to the Commonwealth Court. Further, there are certain civil actions where the Commonwealth Court has original jurisdiction. In those instances a person is usually suing a state agency or agent. For example, a candidate for mayor could be suing the county for the way the ballot will appear at election time. The purpose of the suit would be to get the ballot changed.
Most of the cases on which I have worked or reviewed are quite interesting.Labels: commonwealth court, superior court, supreme court of pennsylvania