Difference between revisions of "The Court System for Family Matters"

Appeals are started by filing in court a ''Notice of Appeal'' in Form 7 or, depending on the circumstances, a ''Notice of Application for Leave to Appeal'' in Form 1, and must be started within 30 days of the order appealed from. The person who starts an appeal is the ''appellant'', the other parties are ''respondents''. The appellant must serve the Notice of Appeal on all respondents. After being served, a respondent has 15 days to file a ''Notice of Cross Appeal'' in Form 8; this is only necessary if the respondent also wants to appeal the Supreme Court's order.

Interim applications, applications for temporary orders, can be made by filing a ''Notice of Motion'' in Form 6 and serving the Notice on the other parties. Applications are rarely necessary, but when they are, the rules say they must be completed within 30 minutes.

All appeals are based on the evidence before the judge who made the original decision. Before an appeal can be heard, the appellant must get transcripts of all of the oral evidence heard at trial, prepare a book with all of the documents used as evidence at trial, and prepare a book with all of the pleadings filed in the Supreme Court Proceeding. (Transcripts in particular are hideously expensive to obtain.) Each side must also prepare a written argument, called a factum, as well as books containing all the statute law and case law he or she will be relying on in arguing the appeal. The court registry is very particular about how these materials are prepared; read the Rules of Court very carefully!

Appeals are heard by panel of three judges; when a legal issue is particularly important, the appeal may be heard by a panel of five judges. The panel reaches its decision after reading through the parties' factums, hearing the parties' oral arguments and considering the law that applies to the issues. The decision of the panel is the decision of a majority of the judges; the judge or judges who disagree with the majority decision are said to "dissent."