Abolishing renewal hearings may tackle the appeals backlog, but at what price? Richard Langley reports
It is a truth, not universally acknowledged by the senior judiciary, that each wave of judge-led procedural reforms has involved the creation of new procedure that only serves to add to the legal costs being incurred. Costs budgeting is the most obvious recent example.
It is only fair to acknowledge therefore that we now have a reform in relation to appeals to the Court of Appeal which will remove a significant part of the appeal process and all the costs that go with it.
With effect from 3 October 2016, when an application for permission to appeal is made to the Court of Appeal, the application will be determined on paper without an oral hearing. Gone is the automatic right to have a refusal on the papers reconsidered at a hearing (known as a “renewal hearing”). In its place is a discretion to direct an oral hearing (a discretion which the judge must exercise if he or she takes the view that the permission application cannot be fairly determined on paper). However, this
