Rule 75.Certification of questions of law to the Supreme Court

Certification is an unusual device. Instead of deciding a difficult legal question and waiting to be reviewed, the trial court asks the Supreme Court to answer it now. It suits a question that is genuinely open, likely to recur, and important enough that guessing wrong would waste everyone's time.

Governed elsewhere. Certification of questions of law is governed by Supreme Court Rule 41. The conditions for certifying, and the form it takes, belong to the receiving court; this rule routes the request and supplies the mechanics.

The petition. A party asking the Family Court to certify sets out the facts and issues at such length and with such clarity as to enable this court to make the finding needed to warrant certification. Attached to it must be a proposed form of certification, substantially in the form of Official Form K of the Supreme Court rules. The applicant drafts the question; the court is not asked to invent one.

If it is granted. The petitioner files with the Clerk the copies needed to conform to the Supreme Court's rule, and the Clerk files 6 certified copies with the Clerk of the Supreme Court within 5 days of the certification being filed.