Procedure in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division

A Reminder

The Registrar of Criminal Appeals has asked us to publicise the following points:

1. If a positive advice on appeal is given then it should always be incorporated into the same document as the grounds of appeal, thus generating a single document rather than the two that often appear at the moment. This enables an assessment of the strength of the appeal to be made more easily.

2. An adverse advice should never be lodged with the Registrar so that if there is a new, personal appeal, there will be nothing adverse in the file and the application can be considered entirely on its merits.

We understand that a large number of cases arrive in the Criminal Appeal Office where it seems clear that counsel are unaware of this message. It is important that this should be remembered in future.