We have several tiers to our legal system. Most of our cases start off in the Administrative Court, which is a branch of the High Court. The appeal route from there is to the Court of Appeal and thence to the House of Lords.
See the comment at the end of the Judicial Review process section.
Most appeals to the Court of Appeal require permission to bring the appeal. The lower court may grant permission, but this is unusual - it is a way of saying that the judge accepts the decision may not be right. More often, permission is refused and one has to apply for permission from the Court of Appeal itself. It is vital to initiate this process quickly. One has to lodge an "Appellant's Notice" within three weeks of the decision to be appealed. This is relatively easy to do, as the information required is not great. Nevertheless, full documentation and a skeleton argument explaining why the appeal is sound, have to be provided within two weeks after that.
In cases where permission for judicial review is refused by the High Court, the Appellant's Notice must be lodged within one week
A court fee of £200 is payable. A decision is made on paper by a Lord Justice of Appeal. If the decision is to refuse permission, one can renew the application to an oral hearing. That will usually be before one or two Lord Justices. The other party or parties are not normally invited, but in practice they will often turn up to the hearing. They may still not be allowed to make representations - the point is that the prospective appellant must show that the proposed appeal stands a realistic prospect of success. If permission to appeal is refused at that stage, that is the end of the matter. One cannot take it further to the House of Lords (on the basis that you have been refused twice - in the High Court and Court of Appeal). (In this sense the Court of Appeal is, therefore, a court of last instance and as a matter of law must refer points of European law that are not acte clair to the European Court of Justice. In practice in such cases the Lord Justice(s) hearing the application for permission will usually adjourn the matter to a full three person court for further consideration.)
If permission is granted, the appeal will proceed, usually up to a year later. It will be before a three-person court. Usually, no new evidence is allowed and the facts have been decided at the High Court stage. In theory, therefore, the appeal stage is quicker and cheaper than the High Court stage. This is also usually true in practice, though an argumentative permission stage can be time consuming, as we have found in some particularly vexed cases.
As in the High Court, judgment may be given on the spot, though usually it is handed down. Increasingly, the Court of Appeal will either give one judgment on behalf of all the Lord Justices, or two will simply agree with one lead judgment. This unanimity is less interesting than previous practice where the judges had different perspectives. There is also again argument about costs and permission is sought to appeal to the House of Lords (which is almost invariably refused).
A dissenting judgment in the Court of Appeal could be a good route to getting permission to appeal to the House of Lords from the Court of Appeal direct. We have successfully obtained such permission once (and went on to win - the Lappel Bank case).
Usually it is necessary to "petition" the House of Lords for permission to appeal. A Petition is like an elaborate skeleton argument from which an "Appeals Committee" of three Law Lords can decide whether to grant leave to appeal or not (in the House of Lords, "permission" is still called "leave"). Leave is given extremely sparingly, usually in relation to cases involving important points of principle.
However, the House of Lords is obliged to take a case where it involves a European Community law point that is not acte clair, so we often approach appeals to the House of Lords with more hope than many prospective appellants, as many of our cases involve such points. You have to serve a copy of your petition on the other parties involves, but exposure to their costs at this stage is minimal. The Petition may be refused outright.
Alternatively the other parties may be asked to provide observations before the Appeals Committee makes up it mind. If still undecided, it can order an oral hearing (which takes about an hour). If leave is granted, the procedure in the House of Lords is elaborate and involves production of many sets of documents. Apart from those needed by the Appellate Committee of five Law Lords, additional copies are required for certain libraries in the UK and also the Library of Congress in the USA. The costs of the appeal procedure tends to be greater for this reason, as well as owing to the court fees involved, the need to give security for the other side's costs, and the common sense reason that this is your last appeal - so you make every effort to win.
The appeal is heard in a Committee Room in the Palace of Westminster. Judgment is given a few weeks later, in an elaborate ceremony in the main House of Lords chamber itself.
We have had several cases go to the House of Lords. The Lappel Bank case was referred by the House to the European Court of Justice, which found in our favour. Similarly the Barker case, concerning the old Crystal Palace site which together with Wells is of great importance to the application of environmental impact assessments in the planning system.
We successfully defended a decision of the Court of Appeal in relation to old minerals permissions in the Preston under Scar case.
We successfully appealed Berkeley which has proved crucial to effective implementation of the EIA directive.
We successfully defended an attempt by the Secretary of State to obtain leave to appeal Huddleston to the House of Lords.
We won Burkett clarifying when time starts to run for making judicial review applications which has made a huge improvement to the fairness of public law work in our view.
We are about to visit the House of Lords again in a case relating to the major cement works at Rugby, where we seek a tougher approach by the courts to regulation of industrial plants like this one including proper application of EU law.