Report No. 136

2.6. Access to the Supreme Court.-

Before the Supreme Court is called upon to make a pronouncement on a particular subject, there is the question of access to the Supreme Court. The need for giving the citizens such access to the highest court of the land where a question of law is involved was very much before the Constitution-makers and supplies the principal rational for those provisions. The Constitution envisages a right of appeal to the Supreme Court when there is involved a substantial question of law that needs to be decided by the Supreme Court.1

This right of appeal is not merely for the benefit of the litigant involved in the immediate controversy. It is also intended to enable the obtaining of pronouncements of law by the highest court. In this sense, such a right of appeal is intended to benefit the legal system itself, by advancing and promoting the cause of uniform interpretation.

1. Para. 24, supra.