Family Court Proceedings – Appeals

What is an Appeal and what are the grounds?

The essence of any Court proceeding is that two (or more) parties cannot agree about something, and so they ask a Judge to decide the outcome. In the context of Family Court proceedings this may be about where a child should live, who should see them, or even whether a Local Authority can remove a child from the care of their parents.

There are two main elements a Judge will consider when making a decision (whether this is a final decision in the case or an issue to be decided before the end).

The first element is the facts of the case as each party presents them. The parties may disagree about the facts and will therefore question (or cross-examine) each other about these.

The second element is the law. The Judge will keep in mind what the law says should happen, whether this is from statues (i.e. acts of parliament), or from case law, (i.e. the outcomes of previously decided cases with similar circumstances).

Once a decision has been made by a Judge, one or more of the parties to a case will likely feel the decision has not gone their way. While it may feel frustrating, simply disagreeing with a decision of a Judge is not enough to contest it.

An appeal of a decision of a Judge can only be made if it can be shown that the Judge made an error in fact (i.e. they misunderstood the facts or otherwise got them wrong in some way), or that the Judge made an error in law (i.e. they did not apply legal principles correctly or otherwise made a mistake in the application of the existing law to the case).

Once an appeal of a decision is made it will normally go to a higher Court to make a decision firstly on whether permission to appeal should be granted, this being whether the basic arguments outlined in the appeal have a chance of succeeding. If the higher Court feels that there is a chance of the appeal succeeding then they will proceed to hear the appeal in full, with arguments from those parties who believe that the Judge’s decision was wrong, and also from those parties who feel that the correct decision was made.

If an appeal is successful and the higher Court concludes that the earlier decision was flawed, then the usual course of action is for the proceedings to be returned to the lower Court for the issue to be considered again, by a different Judge. There is of course also the possibility that the decision of the Court of Appeal could itself be appealed.

ALSO SEE:

Court Transparency: Live-Streaming Of Court Of Appeal Cases : Wilson Browne

Removing a Care Order : Wilson Browne