THE Court of Appeal says it has seen an 85.8 per cent increase in the number of cases coming from the island’s parish courts.

The data was provided in the Appeal Court’s 2021 report which indicated that the increase represented 26.8 per cent of the 31 per cent jump in new appeals filed, compared to 2020.

This translated to 78 of the 290 new appeals filed in 2021 coming from the parish courts, compared to 42 cases in 2020, according to the court’s 2021 annual report, which was tabled in the House of Representatives last week.

The majority of the cases — 166 — were civil matters, 113 were criminal, and 11 miscellaneous, from which 208 were disposed of, or 16.2 per cent more than in the previous year.

“However, when compared to 2020, there was a 9.28 per cent decrease in the clearance rate of appeals in 2021. This was affected by the increase in the number of new appeals,” the court pointed out.

At the same time, the report noted that 61 per cent of the matters were disposed of within six months, 87.5 per cent of them within a week, and 96.13 per cent within three months of hearing.

Furthermore, the court had an overall delivery rate for judgements of 360.38 per cent in 2021, according to its data.

“This suggests that for every 10 newly reserved judgements in 2021, roughly 36 judgements were delivered. The highest judgement delivery rate was recorded in the Michaelmas term with 460 per cent, while the Hilary term recorded the lowest rate with 260 per cent. The international standard for the annual judgement delivery rate is 100 per cent, hence the Court of Appeal has performed exceptionally,” the report stated.

Pointing out the varying methods of handing down judgements, the court noted that the 189 judgements handed down in 2021 do not include oral judgements which have not been put in writing, and that there has been a more than 11 per cent drop in the number of written judgements for the review period.

Judgements are usually made in writing, orally, and via memoranda of reasons. There were 56 outstanding reserved judgements at the end of 2021, 38 of them for that year, 13 from 2020 and five from 2019.

There are also 25 judgements outstanding for which the court has delivered its decision, but has not yet provided written reasons for those judgements. Fifteen of those are for 2021, nine for 2020, and one for 2019.

The court stressed that it has done significant work to clear the outstanding judgements, pointing to a reduction of 100 in the number of 2018 outstanding judgements, a 76 per cent reduction in the number of judgements outstanding from 2019, and slashing by half, those which were outstanding from 2020.

The court hears appeals from all divisions of the Supreme Court as well as all parish courts, and can hear appeals made directly to it based on the decisions of prescribed bodies such as the General Legal Council.