Ghameshlouy v. Commonwealth

I respectfully dissent.

Justice Brown wrote: “Jurisdiction is the power to adjudicate a case on the merits and dispose of it as justice may require.” The Resolute, 168 U.S. 437, 439, 18 S.Ct. 112, 113, 42 L.Ed. 533 (1897). But, “Jurisdiction is a word of many, too many, meanings.” United States v. Vanness, 85 F.3d 661, 663 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1996), quoted with approval in Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 90, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 1010,140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998).

“Clarity would be facilitated if courts and litigants used the label ‘jurisdictional’, not for claim-processing rules, but only…