Recent Changes To The Rules Applicable To Appeals

Co-authored by James Bourne (Trainee Solicitor)

On 3 October 2016, Part 52 of the Civil Procedure Rules was restructured following years of piecemeal amendment. The changes whilst significant are not as far reaching as those proposed during the consultation process. For example, there has been no change at this stage to the general threshold test on appeal to require a substantial rather than a real prospect of success.

Key changes

The key changes to Part 52 relate to:

the removal of an automatic right to renew the application at an oral hearing if an application for permission to appeal has been rejected on paper; the express inclusion of a requirement of a real prospect of success in the test for permission on second appeals; and a general move to reviewing decisions on applications made during Court of Appeal proceedings without an oral hearing. An application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal issued on or after 3 October 2016 will now be determined on paper without an oral hearing unless the judge considering the application is of the opinion that the application cannot be fairly determined on paper. It is envisaged that any oral hearing will take place promptly (generally within 14 days of the direction for a hearing), in order to try to ensure that applications are dealt with promptly. This is a departure from the previous rules under which an oral hearing could be requested if the application was rejected on paper unless it had been determined totally without merit.

The test for permission to appeal for second appeals (i.e. an appeal of a decision that was itself an appeal) now expressly includes a requirement that the appeal must have a real prospect of success in addition to raising an important point of principle or practice, unless there is some other...