What happens in the Court of Appeal - Criminal

The Court of Appeal - Criminal hears appeals from decisions of the Circuit Court, Central Criminal Court and Special Criminal Court.

The powers of the Court are set out in the Court of Appeal Act 2014.  
The appeal procedure is governed by the following Rules of Court and Practice Directions.
Judgments delivered by the Court are published on this website.

The most common types of appeal are as follows:
Where you are convicted of an offence on indictment you can appeal either or both:

• Severity of Sentence
• ​Conviction

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) can appeal:

• ​Undue Leniency
• ​Decision not to order a re-trial

The DPP can also appeal a point of law from a trial on indictment to the Court of Appeal. As this is to clarify the law for future cases this does not mean that the Court will overturn a "not guilty" verdict. 

Three judges sit for the hearing of thel appeal although the President of the Court of Appeal (or a judge nominated by the President) hears applications for orders which are not final orders in the case management list and List to Fix Dates.

Notice of Appeal must be filed with the Court of Appeal office within 28 days from date of sentence. Grounds are required to be listed on the notice of appeal. 

Application for Enlargement of Time must also be filed where the 28 days has expired. An appeal filed after the 28 day time limit cannot go ahead until the application for enlargement of time has been dealt with first. Grounds for both the appeal and the enlargement are required to be listed on the Enlargement of Time application. 

Transcripts are not ordered until grounds have been received. Once the transcript has been produced it must be sent to the Trial Judge for certification. The transcript can only be distributed once it has been certified. The transcript cannot be distributed prior to an enlargement of time application being dealt with. The transcript is emailed free of charge where the appellant is Legally Aided, if not there is a fee of 80c per page.

Amongst other applications all motions and enlargement of time applications are required to be listed at Case Management. Please contact the office to arrange a listing.

Submissions are filed by the moving party based on the grounds listed in the notice of appeal.

The List to Fix Dates takes place once per legal term. Once the office is in receipt of submissions an appeal is entered into the next available List to Fix Dates. 

At the List to Fix Dates a hearing date is assigned for the appeal.

Court Martial Matters

Under the Court of Appeal Act 2014, the Court of Appeal was given the appellate jurisdiction previously exercised by the Courts-Martial Appeal Court. 

The Court of Appeal now hears appeals from people who have been convicted by a Court-martial for offences against military law. A person desiring to appeal to the Court of Appeal against finding and/or sentence should lodge a Notice of Appeal (signed by the appellant) in the Form 37 not later than 28 days after the date of promulgation of finding and sentence of the trial court-martial.  Further Information is available on the Defence Forces website  

Courts- Martial (Legal Aid) forms to be sent to:

Personnel Policy Branch
Dept. of Defence
Station Road
Newbridge
Co. Kildare.