Opinion ID: 2618323
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the district court lacks statutory authority to adjudicate this demand for transfer of court funds

Text: The Supreme Court must inquire, sua sponte if necessary, not only into its own appellate cognizance but also into the original jurisdiction of the court whence the case came. [17] The precise issue for us to resolve here is whether the Supreme Court's or its chief justice's administrative directive, which deals with some point of internal accounting or general management of court funds, may be the subject of district court's inquiry as an ordinary claim pressed in an action under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act. [18] To this question we give today a categorically negative answer regardless of the rubric under which the chief justice's directive here in contest may fall. Indeed, the exercise of judicial authority manifests itself in three entirely different genres of decision-making process: adjudication, management or administration, and rule-making. [19]