The Standing Judicial Commission serves as the PCA’s highest court. Appointed by the General Assembly, the Book of Church Order tasks the commission “all matters governed by the Rules of Discipline.” When a judicial case is appealed or referred to the General Assembly, the SJC hears and renders a judgment. 

The commission consists of 24 members with an equal number of ruling and teaching elders serving four-year terms. As a commission, its decisions are final and do not require any subsequent action to be approved. As the BCO 15-5 states, “The decision of the Standing Judicial Commission shall be the final decision of the General Assembly.”

Every year, the SJC reports to the General Assembly. As part of its report, the SJC provides a list of cases currently before the court, like this list of 26 cases from 2001:

As the denomination has grown, elders have expressed concern about the volume of cases the SJC handles annually. Looking at the number of SJC cases from 2000-2025, here are a few observations:

1. The caseload every year has overlap. The numbers in the chart below are not merely new cases filed in a particular year. They also include cases in process. This is because a case could have been appealed to the Assembly in the spring, which means it would be listed in the SJC’s report. But the SJC may not take up the case until the fall, which means it will reappear in the following year’s report. The caseload metric gives a better sense of how many cases are before the SJC in some form or fashion in a given year.

For example, here is the caseload from 2002. If you compare this list with the one above from 2001, you will see an overlap of 12 cases. For the sake of this analysis, we used the number of cases listed every year in the SJC’s report, whether or not the case is also listed another year.

2. The number of SJC cases has increased over the last five years. 

From 2000 to 2019, the SJC averaged 22 cases per year. From 2021 to 2025, the SJC averaged 30 cases per year, a 36% increase. Though 2025 represented the largest caseload since the turn of the century, the available data makes it difficult to discern whether this is an outlier or the beginning of a new trend.

3. The amount of work each SJC case requires can vary. Some of the cases listed are ruled out of order for various reasons or are later withdrawn by those who originated them. The number of cases does not itself convey the simplicity or complexity of work before the SJC.

4. Related to the previous item, a few SJC members recently remarked on the growth in the size of the cases coming before them, referred to as the record of the case. Some cases have a record exceeding 1,000 pages. The members who are deciding these cases are required to familiarize themselves with the entire record. Though the number of cases may not be increasing, it appears the documentation included with each case has increased. 

The SJC will report on its current caseload to the 53rd General Assembly when it meets in Louisville.