ORDER
Section 823 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-106, 110 Stat. 186 (1996), has given the Chief Judge of this court the task of providing the Congress with an opinion as to the answers to two legal questions.1 The court treats any request from the legislative branch of government with the highest respect. The court also understands that in our democratic system of government the judiciary has a duty to use its institutional resources, and make available its judgment, whenever the Congress feels it might be useful in order to benefit the law-making function. This is true whether that request is for legislative information on ways to improve the administration of justice, or is about the court’s docket and resources, or is embodied in special jurisdictional acts or congressional references.2 This is particularly true for this court, given its unique historical relationship with the Congress.
This being said, however, the court notes that it has a duty to determine if such a request is one the court may permissibly comply with under our Constitution. As officers of the United States, the judges of the court have sworn a sacred oath to uphold and defend our Constitution, which is our first duty. In this case this duty can be analogized to a jurisdictional inquiry, since it is the prime duty of each court to determine its jurisdiction before it acts. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 176, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803).
The United States Court of Federal Claims is, of course, a court created under Article I of the United States Constitution, as was its predecessor, the United States Court of Claims, for much of its history. Williams v. United States, 289 U.S. 553, 53 S.Ct. 751, 77 L.Ed. 1372 (1933); Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U.S. 530, 82 S.Ct. 1459, 8 L.Ed.2d 671, reh’g denied, 371 U.S. 854, 83 S.Ct. 14, 9 L.Ed.2d 93 (1962). Article I courts, like courts created under Article III of the Constitution, derive their authority and their limitations from the Constitution. One such limitation, necessary for the protection of democratic liberty, is that bodies exercising the judicial power be confined to dealing with real disputes in concrete factual settings. This protects the people against *116the danger that unelected judges will engage in broad public policy making, contrary to our notions of popular government. Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991).3
With respect to Article III courts this idea, which protects popular government, has been embodied in the case or controversy limitation. Osborn v. Bank of United States, 22 U.S. 738, 819, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824); Smith v. Adams, 130 U.S. 167, 173-74, 9 S.Ct. 566, 568-69, 32 L.Ed. 895 (1889); Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911). The line is not so clear, however, when it comes to Article I courts, United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1871); Pope v. United States, 323 U.S. 1, 65 S.Ct. 16, 89 L.Ed. 3 (1944). Thus, a dispute over compensation between the United States government and two private U.S. citizens, who were severely injured by machine gun fire from the Army during the Dominican emergency of 1965, would not be a case or controversy under Article III. This case was appropriate for consideration by the U.S. Court of Claims as a congressional reference ease, however, because it was, in the practical sense, if not the legal sense, a real case and a real controversy, Burt v. United States, 199 Ct.Cl. 897 (1972). It involved real parties who were disputing issues that affected their vital rights.
The court has reviewed the request at issue here in this nght. It has done so because courts have a solemn constitutional obligation to limit their activities to those appropriately within the judicial power and judicial function. Marbury, 5 U.S. 137; Freytag, 501 U.S. at 889, 111 S.Ct. at 2644.
At first glance, the court was concemed that the statutory section, couched in the language of an advisory opinion, implied an intent for the Chief Judge’s mere speculation or worse, pontifieation, on some abstract legal point. A further review of the statutory language in light of the very useful and helpful clarification by Senator Robert C. Smith, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Acquisition and Technology,4 and various indications that this opinion may resolve numerous active cases in both this and the United States District Courts, have led the court to conclude that it *117may appropriately and in an institutionally proper manner, assist the Congress in this requést. It is hoped that the court’s efforts may resolve a number of actual disputes.
IT IS SO ORDERED.