A judicial district or legal district denotes the territorial area for which a legal

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

(usually a district court) has

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

By region

Europe

Austria

In texts concerning

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, "judicial district" (german: Gerichtsbezirk) refers to the geographical area under the jurisdiction of a district court, the lowest-level kind of court. Austria is partitioned into 115 judicial districts.

Germany

In Germany, ordinary ''Gerichtsbarkeit'' courts are the smallest districts of those courts. There are

superior court In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general jurisdiction over civil and criminal legal cases. A superior court is "superior" in relation to a court with limited jurisdiction (see small claims court), which is restricted to civi ...

districts, which usually have several legal districts forming a regional district. Accordingly, the relationship between regional districts and the ''Oberlandesgericht'' is designed. To speak of a legal district of the Federal Court is superfluous, because that district would include the entire federal territory. The rule that courts are only responsible in matters within their legal districts, however, must not be over-represented. The legal process takes a number of schemes under which also matters from a different legal district may be justified, or jurisdiction in those cases in which a domestic court normally is not present.

Portugal

The basic type of judicial division of Portugal is the ''

comarca A ''comarca'' (, or , or ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, ...

'', corresponding to the territorial area of jurisdiction of a judicial court of first instance. The judiciary organization reform of 2014 simplified the judicial division of Portugal, that until then included 231 ''comarcas'', grouped in 57 ''círculos judiciais'' (judicial circles), by themselves grouped in four ''distritos judiciais'' (judicial districts). Depending on the size of its population, each ''comarca'' could have from a single judicial court of generic competence to a complex structure of diverse courts of specific competences (civil, criminal, criminal procedure, labor, family, etc.). Since 2014, the country has the ''comarca'' as its single type of judicial division. Portugal is now divided in 23 larger ''comarcas'', all of them having, each one, a single generic competence judicial court of first instance. Each judicial court is divided in several specialized sections. The judicial courts of second instance and some specialized courts of first instance have jurisdiction over several ''comarcas''.

Spain

Americas

Canada

Peru

United States

For the purpose of the

federal judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

, each

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

is organized into between one and four judicial districts, which may be further subdivided into divisions. Each state is also independently divided into judicial districts or their equivalents for the purpose of its state judiciary. {{DEFAULTSORT:Legal District Judicial legal terminology