Court of Appeal clears 2021 and 2022 backlogs |20 December 2023
The Court of Appeal has managed to clear its 2021 and 2022 backlogs, as well as some cases from 2023.
The President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Anthony Fernando, made the announcement on Monday, when expressing his gladness that this has materialised.
Justice Fernando quoted his speech of December 16, 2022, at the end of last year’s sitting, where he stated it was his sincere wish to conclude hearing of all appeals filed during the years 2021 and 2022 by the end of the year 2023, and to be left with only the appeals filed during the year 2023.
“That wish and dream of mine has become a reality.”
“I am happy and proud to announce that we would, with the delivery of judgments today (Monday), conclude disposing of 99 civil, constitutional and criminal appeals filed up to December 31, 2022 and even some of the appeals filed in 2023. We will also conclude disposing of 68 civil and criminal, miscellaneous applications. In total we would thus have concluded disposing of a total of 167 civil, criminal and constitutional appeals and miscellaneous applications during the year 2023,” said Justice Fernando.
The Court of Appeal is now left with 27 appeals for both civil and criminal cases for the year 2024.
“I may humbly state from the standards of any other jurisdiction, this is a record performance in respect of disposal of cases by any appellate court.”
From January 1 to December 18, 2023, and with the delivery of judgments on Monday, the court had concluded disposing of 75 civil appeals, 2 constitutional appeals and 22 criminal appeals.
14 civil appeals filed this year are set for the April 2024 Court of Appeal session. There are no other pending civil or constitutional appeals before the court at the moment, said Justice Fernando.
Excluding the 11 criminal appeals listed for the April 2024 Court of Appeal session, the court is left with only 2 criminal appeals to be heard in August 2024, which were filed this year.
For 2023, the court concluded disposing all 58 civil miscellaneous applications filed, and 10 criminal miscellaneous applications, inclusive of those delivered on Monday. There were only two pending criminal miscellaneous applications filed in December, said Justice Fernando.
“I must state that we succeeded in achieving this record target due to the efforts of my colleagues who ungrudgingly worked through many appeal briefs that they had to deal with, despite many shortcomings, namely delays in filing skeleton heads of arguments, the very poor quality of skeleton heads and submissions and sheer lack of interest on the part of some lawyers. There are of course some lawyers who need to be commended for the assistance given to Court and their cooperation.”
With regard to changes in the work and proceeding of the court, Justice Fernando said the Court of Appeal of Seychelles Rules 2023 that was published on November 13, 2023 to guide the court, shall come into operation on January 14, 2024. He noted the Rules of the Court of Appeal were first published in 1978 and thereafter in 2005. The latter was repealed and superseded by the Court of Appeal of Seychelles Rules 2023.
Also present on the bench were Justice Mathilda Twomey-Woods, Justice Fiona Robinson, Justice Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza, Justice Karuna Gunesh-Balaghee and Justice Janak De Silva.
Patrick Joubert