Only a(N) __________ Court Can Review the Decisions of a Lower Court

The most obvious manner in which individual judges are answerable is through the correct of the party to the proceedings to entreatment any judicial decision, in some cases through several higher courts. In this way the losing political party is able to have the determination reviewed past another contained judge or judges. The court determining an appeal will correct errors by the trial judge and the right of appeal ensures that, as far as possible, courts arrive at right decisions. The decisions of appellate courts are fully reasoned, widely available and they practise not always pull their punches.

Simply a pocket-size number of the millions of cases commenced each year are subject field to a successful appeal. For example, ane,553,983 civil (non-family unit) cases started in 2011, whilst just ane,269 appeals were filed in the Court of Appeal Civil Division in the same flow. It is vital the right exists as information technology ensures that if a judge does brand an error of law or fact the means exist to right information technology. In this sense the correct of appeal as a class of explanatory accountability has two distinct (but overlapping) functions, one private and one public. These were get-go noted by the Roman legal scholar Justinian.

The private function is to provide accountability to the individual litigants. The public function is that enabling errors to be corrected maintains and enhances the confidence of citizens in the justice system. Another aspect of the public function is that the appeal court tin provide guidance for future cases and thus facilitate certainty. In these ways the right of entreatment furthers the rule of law.

Examples of the many contexts in which there may exist a right of appeal are:

• In criminal cases there may be an appeal against conviction or sentence by the defendant, and a reference to the Court of Appeal by the Attorney General against a sentence that is considered to be unduly lenient in more serious cases.
• In family cases, an appeal confronting a guess's decision to place a kid in intendance, to grant custody of a child to one parent rather than the other, or to determine how the matrimonial assets should be divided on divorce;
• In civil cases the examples include; appeals against a judge's determination of a contractual dispute (for case between consumer and supplier, architect and house-owner, or ii businesses), a purlieus dispute between neighbours, or a claim for bounty for personal injuries sustained in an accident or because of negligence by a dr.;
• Against decisions of judges ruling on challenges by citizens to the decisions of public authorities; for examples challenges to decisions of NHS Trusts as to the availability of medicines, and decisions of planning government granting or refusing permission to build or extend houses, roads or motorways;
• Procedural decisions made by judges in all parts of the justice system, such as whether to allow or disallow certain testify to be put before the court, whether or non to require disclosure of certain evidence, or whether or not to grant an adjournment are also subject to appeal.

In 2012 just 62 individuals had their sentence increased later having their cases referred to the Court of Entreatment by the Chaser General every bit 'disproportionately lenient' – a small fraction of the 138,808 cases dealt with by the Crown Courtroom that year. There is also a proportionately small number of appeals against conviction or sentences. It is important to retrieve that these references and appeals represent but a modest minority of those cases which are decided in the course of a year, and that they are not representative of the vast majority of appeals by those who take been convicted of a criminal offence where the sentencing conclusion of the court is upheld. This is despite the very strong criticism which is levelled at judges on the grounds that sentences are insufficiently astringent.

Information technology is tempting to try to analyse the performance of individual judges by looking at the number of appeals against them and so drawing the decision that those judges who are often successfully appealed are in some mode less than competent. Such a conclusion cannot properly exist fatigued. The number of successful appeals against an individual judge's decisions is not necessarily indicative of competence. Figures on successful appeals against a judge'due south decisions can only begin to have relevance if they are set confronting the full number of decisions made past the estimate in question, and those where there has been no entreatment, or an appeal has been rejected. It should also be borne in listen that some judges take caseloads involving more circuitous and serious cases, so they might be more likely to feature in appeal cases. In any event, there are many cases where the Court of Appeal will overturn decisions without implying any criticism of the original judge, for example, where the lower courtroom was required to follow an earlier decision of the Court of Entreatment which is afterwards found to be wrong.

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Source: https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-the-government-and-the-constitution/jud-acc-ind/right-2-appeal/

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