Cite as: 523 U. S. 83 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
question. The jurisdictional question in the case had been raised by the Court sua sponte after oral argument, and supplemental briefing had been ordered. Secretary of Navy v. Avrech, supra, at 677. Before the Court came to a decision, however, the merits issue in the case had been conclusively resolved in Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733 (1974), a case argued the same day as Avrech. The Court was unwilling to decide the jurisdictional question without oral argument, 418 U. S., at 677, but acknowledged (with some understatement) that "even the most diligent and zealous advocate could find his ardor somewhat dampened in arguing a jurisdictional issue where the decision on the merits is . . . foreordained," id., at 678. Accordingly, the Court disposed of the case on the basis of the intervening decision in Parker, in a minimal-ist two-page per curiam opinion. The first thing to be observed about Avrech is that the supposed jurisdictional issue was technically not that. The issue was whether a court-martial judgment could be attacked collaterally by a suit for backpay. Although Avrech, like the earlier case of United States v. Augenblick, 393 U. S. 348 (1969), characterized this question as jurisdictional, we later held squarely that it was not. See Schlesinger v. Councilman, 420 U. S. 738, 753 (1975). In any event, the peculiar circumstances of Avrech hardly permit it to be cited for the precedent-shattering general proposition that an "easy" merits question may be decided on the assumption of jurisdiction. To the contrary, the fact that the Court ordered briefing on the jurisdictional question sua sponte demonstrates its adherence to traditional and constitutionally dictated requirements. See Cross-Sound Ferry Services, Inc. v. ICC, 934 F. 2d, at 344- 345, and n. 10 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in denial of petition for review).
Other cases sometimes cited by the lower courts to support "hypothetical jurisdiction" are similarly distinguishable. United States v. Augenblick, as we have discussed, did not involve a jurisdictional issue. In Philbrook v. Glodgett, 421 U. S. 707, 721 (1975), the jurisdictional question was whether,
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