Court of Appeal Workload statistics for 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021

Court workload

The Court delivered 709 judgments in 2021, compared to 691 in 2020. 

Total new business

The Court’s workload increased in 2021, with a total of 652 appeals and 359 applications filed.  

Appeals

A total of 634 appeals were disposed of, a decrease of 8 compared to the previous year. 

As at 31 December 2021, there were 468 appeals on hand, an increase of 18 compared to the same time last year. 

Applications

Application disposals increased by 44 to 367. 

As at 31 December 2021, there were 120 applications on hand, a decrease of 8 compared to the same time last year. 

Examples of the types of applications dealt with by the Court include: leave to appeal, bail, name suppression, fresh evidence (civil) and disclosure (criminal) and jurisdictional issues. 

Criminal Jurisdiction 

Criminal appeals

A total of 412 criminal appeals were filed in 2021, this remained unchanged compared to the previous year. 

Criminal appeal disposals decreased by 15 to 407. 

As at 31 December 2021, there were 272 criminal appeals on hand, an increase of 5 compared to the previous year. 

Criminal applications 

The number of new criminal applications filed in the year 2021 decreased by 51 to 90 applications. 

The number of criminal applications disposed of decreased by 37 to 104. 

As at 31 December 2021, the number of criminal applications on hand decreased by 14 to 38 applications. 

Civil Jurisdiction 

Civil appeals

The number of new civil appeals filed in the year 2021 increased by 11 to 240 new appeals.  

The number of civil appeals disposed of increased by 23 to 227. 

As at 31 December 2021, there were 196 civil appeals on hand, an increase of 13 compared to the same time last year. 

Civil applications

The number of new civil applications filed in the year 2021 increased by 63 to 269 applications.  

The number of civil applications disposed of increased by 81 to 263 compared to the same time last year.

As at 31 December 2021, the number of civil applications on hand increased by 6 to 82 applications.