Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal deals predominantly with civil and criminal appeals from matters heard in the High Court and serious criminal matters heard in the District Court.

Note: The way the workload of the Court of Appeal is reported changed for the publication of the June 2012 annual statistics. The data source used changed from manual workload returns to the Ministry's electronic Appeal Management System (AMS). Comparisons cannot be made between the published December 2011 annual statistics, and the December 2012 annual statistics provided below.

Criminal jurisdiction

The number of criminal appeals filed in the Court of Appeal has generally been increasing over the past five years. There were a higher number of criminal appeals filed in the last 12 months (556, compared to 531 for the 12 months ending 31 December 2011). Disposals decreased over the last 12 months, from 579 in the 12 months ending 31 December 2011 to 513 in the 12 months ending 31 December 2012.

As at 31 December 2012, there were 318 active criminal appeals (awaiting hearing or judgment), an increase on the 275 active criminal appeals as at 31 December 2011.

Civil jurisdiction

The number of active civil appeals has not changed significantly over the last 12 months. In the 12 months ending 31 December 2012:

263 new civil appeals were filed (down from 272 appeals in the previous 12 months)
249 cases were disposed (down from 269 disposals in the previous 12 months)

As at 31 December 2012, there were 248 active civil appeals (awaiting hearing or judgment) (up from 234 active civil appeals at the same point in 2011).

Statistics

Workload
Court of Appeal workload statistics