In law, an en banc session is a session in which a case is heard before all the judges of a court rather than by one judge or a panel of judges selected from them. The equivalent terms in banc, in banco or in bank are also sometimes seen. En banc review is often used for unusually complex cases or cases considered to be of greater importance.
s in the United States sometimes grant rehearing en banc to reconsider a decision of a panel of the court in which the case concerns a matter of exceptional public importance or the panel's decision appears to conflict with a prior decision of the court. In rarer instances, an appellate court will order hearing en banc as an initial matter instead of the panel hearing it first. The Supreme Court of the United States, and the highest courts of most states, do not sit in panels but hear all of their cases en banc. Cases in United States courts of appeals are heard by a three-judge panel. A majority of the active circuit judges may decide to hear or rehear a case en banc. Parties may suggest an en banc hearing to the judges but have no right to it. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure state that en banc proceedings are disfavored but may be ordered to maintain uniformity of decisions within the circuit or if the issue is exceptionally important. Each court of appeals also has particular rules regarding en banc proceedings. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, as applied in the federal court system, only a court sitting en banc or the U.S. Supreme Court can overrule a prior decision in the same circuit; in other words, one panel cannot overrule another. Federal law provides that for courts with more than 15 judges, an en banc hearing may consist of "such number of members of its en banc courts as may be prescribed by rule of the court of appeals." The Ninth Circuit, with 29 judges, uses this procedure, and its en banc court consists of 11 judges. Theoretically, the Ninth Circuit can hear the case with all judges participating. In practice, however, such a hearing has only been requested rarely; the requests have all been denied. The Fifth Circuit, with 17 judges, also adopted a similar procedure in 1986. State of La. ex rel. Guste v. M/V TESTBANK, 752 F.2d 1019 . The Sixth Circuit has 16 judges but it has not yet adopted such a policy; en banc cases are generally heard by all 16 judges. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978, sat en banc for the first time in 2017 in a case concerning bulk data collection.
United Kingdom
Neither the term "en banc" nor the related term "Full Court" are in common use in the UK. The UK Supreme Court has criteria in place to determine the size of the panel that sits on any one case, and particularly important cases can be heard by a panel comprising all the justices, but this is not referred to as sitting en banc in the UK. The UK Supreme Court has twelve justices, and cases are ordinarily decided by panels of five. The largest possible panel is 11 of the 12 justices, to prevent a deadlock. 11 judges may sit on a panel:
in cases where the Court is being asked to depart, or may decide to depart from a previous decision;
in cases of high constitutional importance or great public importance;
The Supreme Court of Japan, which has a total of fifteen justices, ordinarily hears cases in panels of five judges, but is required to hear cases en banc when ruling on most constitutional issues, when overturning a previous decision of the Supreme Court, when the five-judge panel is unable to reach a decision, and in other limited cases.
Australia
Appeals to the High Court of Australia are sometimes heard by the full bench of all seven justices. Cases that are heard by the full bench include cases of constitutional significance, or where the court is being asked to overrule a previous decision, or cases that involve principles of major public importance. The state supreme courts and the Federal Court of Australia often hear appeals by a "Full Court" of judges, but this does not normally include all the judges on the court. For example, in New South Wales, particularly important appeal cases are heard by five judges, chosen from a pool of more than a dozen appeal judges. Some court buildings in Australia include a court room specifically called the "Banco Court", which is a large court room where the judges of the court can sit en banc. They are used for full bench hearings as well as ceremonies.
