what is court

A court is an institution, often 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 accordance with the rule of law. It is the central means for dispute resolution in both common law and civil law legal systems. Courts decide what really happened and what should be done about it, whether a person committed a crime, and what the punishment should be. They use the adversary process to reach a decision, where each side presents its most persuasive arguments to the "fact finder" (either a judge or a jury) and emphasizes the facts that support its case. The decisions of courts may affect many people besides those directly involved in the lawsuit