Palau's Supreme Court was created in 1981, pursuant to Article X of the Constitution. Mamoru Nakamura was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Educated in Hawaii and Oregon, Justice Nakamura worked in a variety of legal capacities in Micronesia before being appointed the first Micronesian Associate Justice on the High Court of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. He served as Palau's first Chief Justice from 1981 until his death in 1992. In 1992, President Ngiratkel Etpison appointed to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice, Arthur Ngiraklsong.

      Chief Justice Ngiraklson served until his retirement in 2020. After serving thirty-four years on the Palau Supreme Court, with twenty-eight as Chief Justice, Arthur Ngiraklsong, 81, passed away on November 16, 2022. During his tenure, Ngiraklsong held the Judiciary together, maintaining it as a truly unified and independent entity.

      On July 30, 2020, following Chief Justice Arthur Ngiraklsong's retirement, Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr., President of the Republic of Palau, appointed Oldiais Ngiraikelau to be the next Chief Justice of the Palau Supreme Court. At the time of his appointment, Justice Ngiraikelau was serving as the Presiding Justice of the Trial Division of the Palau Supreme Court.

      On August 19, 2020, immediately following his investiture, and pursuant to the Rules Implementing the Separation of the Justices which provide, inter alia, that the Chief Justice shall assign a Justice of the Trial Division to preside in the Trial Division, Chief Justice Ngiraikelau assigned Associate Justice Kathleen M. Salii to the post of Presiding Justice.

      Palau Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is a Court of Record consisting of an Appellate Division and a Trial Division. ROP Const. Art. X, § 2. The Appellate Division is a court of last resort. It has final review jurisdiction over all decisions of the Trial Division and all lower courts. ROP Const. Art. X, § 6. In other words, it hears and determines appeals from the Trial Division, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Land Court, and its rulings constitute binding legal authority not subject to review by another court.

      Appellate Division. Three justices hear appeals. The initial structure of the Supreme Court had all justices serving in both the Trial and Appellate Divisions. ROP Const. Art. X, § 2. On November 19, 2008, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, keeping intact the basic structure of the Supreme Court but removing the limit on the number of justices and calling for the separation of the appellate justices provided the OEK appropriated funds for additional justices of that division. Once the OEK appropriated funds in 2016, the Chief Justice promulgated formal rules for the separation of the justices on January 5, 2017. There are now two full-time justices in the Appellate Division, Chief Justice Oldiais Ngiraikelau and Associate Justice Fred I. Isaacs. The remaining Associate Justice position is vacant.

      When one or more of the justices are conflicted in a case, replacements are assigned from a pool of nonresident part-time associate justices. These are generally judges serving in other regional jurisdictions. Currently, there are five non-resident Appellate Justices.

      Trial Division. The Trial Division has original and concurrent jurisdiction with the National Court over all matters in law and equity, but exclusive jurisdiction over all matters affecting Ambassadors, other Public Ministers and Consuls, admiralty, and maritime cases, and those matters in which the national government or the state government is a party. ROP Const. Art. X, § 5. The National Court is currently inactive. There are now four full-time resident justices of the Trial Division — the Honorable Kathleen M. Salii, Lourdes F. Materne, Honora E. Remengesau Rudimch, and Justice Peter Huffman. Justice Salii is the Presiding Justice of the Trial Division and as such, she is responsible for assigning cases to the trial court justices, monitoring case management, and responding to public and governmental inquiries regarding the work of the Trial Division. There are four part-time, nonresident Justices who are appointed to the Trial Division to handle cases in which all Trial Division justices have irresolvable conflicts.

      Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Common Pleas was created by statute in 1981 and officially established in 1982 to handle common civil and criminal cases. It has jurisdiction to hear civil cases where the amount claimed or in dispute is $10,000 or less. It does not, however, adjudicate cases involving land interests, regardless of the amount claimed or in dispute (Land cases are heard in the Land Court — see next section). Generally, the civil cases that come before the Court include name changes, family law matters, and simple estate settlement proceedings. For alimony and child support cases, there is no cap on the amount in controversy. The Court also hears small claims, where the amount claimed is $3,000 or less, in less formal hearings.

      The Court of Common Pleas may also adjudicate criminal cases. Prior to July of 2017, criminal cases were assigned to the Court of Common Pleas by the Chief Justice. Since the separation of the justices from the Trial Division and the Appellate Division, the Rules of Criminal Procedures were amended to allow cases involving minor offenses defined by statute as misdemeanors, petty misdemeanors, or violations to be filed and tried in the first instance in the Court of Common Pleas. Appeals from cases adjudicated by the Court of Common Pleas are filed directly with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.

       The Chief Justice has also designated the Court of Common Pleas to handle civil domestic abuse cases brought under the Family Protection Act (FPA), which was enacted in November 2012. Senior Judge Midth Bells has served as the judicial officer for the Court of Common Pleas since she was sworn in on October 27, 2022.

       Land Court. The Land Court was established in 1996 and is vested with jurisdiction over civil cases involving the adjudication and certification of title to land. The Land Court makes determinations with respect to the ownership of all lands within the Republic, including the return of land that became public because of its acquisition by previous occupying powers through force, coercion, fraud, or without just compensation. Appeals from the Land Court go directly to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. The Land Court currently includes one Senior Judge Rose Mary Skebong. Land Court proceedings are generally conducted in Palauan, although translations are available for non-Palauan speakers..

      Two Court Locations. The original location of the Court was in Koror. When Palau's capital was moved to Ngerulmud, in the state of Melekeok, approximately forty-five minutes from Koror, a Judiciary Building was built.

       The building housing the Court in Koror was built by the Japanese Administration, beginning around 1922. The building served as the Palau District Branch government building and included tax collection and administration offices. The basement of the building served as a jail, and a formal garden filled an interior yard. The building also housed a local court, presided over by one judge. The South Seas Appellate Court was also located in Koror. The judge of the Koror local court also served as the Chief Justice of the Appellate Court.

       While much of Koror was destroyed in World War II, the Court building survived. In recent years, the Court complex has expanded, with annexes named after Pablo Ringang, presiding judge of the Justice Court and the District Court, and after former Chief Justice Nakamura. The complex now houses the Court of Common Pleas, courtrooms and chambers for four Supreme Court Justices, and the Singichi Ikesakes Law Library (named for the first Presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas), as well as Offices for the Clerk of Courts, Administrative Director, Marshals, Probation Officers, Attorney General and Public Defender.

       In 2006 government officials moved their offices in the former capital of Koror to Ngerulmud, located in the state of Melekeok. The capitol building in Ngerulmud is the location for certain trials and most oral arguments of the Palau Supreme Court Appellate Division as well as all the activities of the Land Court along with most of the hearings.

       For more on the courts of Palau, refer to Office of Court Counsel, The Quest for HARMONY; A Pictorial History of the Law and Justice in the Republic of Palau. This book is available in the Supreme Court's law library in Ngerulmud.