Thanks for the interesting insight, Michael A. Cretacci ! Very glad about that and thank you for your time. I will try to find out which state it is that you were talking about. And in the meantime, I'm eager to hear more answers about whether there may be jurisdictions without any possibility of appeal in civil cases.

Hello Cara Warmuth and many thanks for this question.

Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to a fair trial. It is on this basis that in the European Union, and more generally in legal systems sharing a certain universality of human rights, a second level of jurisdiction is provided for appeal. To my knowledge, in these countries there is always a body allowing to appeal a civil decision.

However, this is not an absolute right and it may happen that some civil judgments are rendered in the first and last instance. And therefore no appeal is possible. These are generally disputes that are considered to be of lesser importance (which is based on monetary value). This is the case at least in France, but a comparative study would be interesting.

Nevertheless, it will always be possible to appeal to the Supreme Court.

I know the answer for this question. it is yes there is. in my country (Eritrea), there are cases that start in the high court and there is only the appellate court with higher jurisdiction so there is only one right of appeal (and for one party only). for instance, A sues B in the high court of Eritrea and then it is decided in favour of A. if B appeals to the appellate court and the appellate court decides in his favour, A would have no right of appeal because there is no higher court. the ministry of justice have been planning to have a better structure to resolve this for but nothing yet. i hope i answered your question fairly.

kokob

judge in the central zonal court of Eritrea

There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Many of them are quite small. I doubt that even 200 of them have a trial court. And some of those, I do not know the number, have no appellate court at all.

Cara-In reference the Robert's reply the 574 tribes registered with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs can be found at this link https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/01/30/2020-01707/indian-entities-recognized-by-and-eligible-to-receive-services-from-the-united-states-bureau-of

As a result of varying tribal law and treaties, tribal law in the U.S. is quite complex. Here is another link that may help provide some context https://tribalstate.nmcourts.gov/what-you-should-know-about-tribal-courts.aspx Hope this is of some help.

In an Encyclopedia Britannica article, law professors Stephen Yeazell and Geoffrey Hazzard assert that ALL countries allow appeal in private civil litigation. Yet your question invites a respondent to identify any exception to that broad and general statement.

Having worked as a lawyer and court-management advisor before my retirement with judges and court officials in all of the American states and in more than a dozen foreign countries, I don’t know any specific country that doesn’t provide for appellate review of civil-law or common-law court decisions in the litigation of private disputes.

Being unable to tell you if there is in fact any such country, the best assistance I can give is to help you eliminate the countries that DO provide appellate review of first-instance court decisions in the litigation of private disputes. To that end, the two most comprehensive sources of information I have found are the following:

* Nation Master, “Government > Judicial branch: Countries Compared,” https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Government/Judicial-branch (court system information for about 239 countries).

* Political Handbook of the World, 2018-2019 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, CQ Press, [2019]), edited by Tom Lansford, the e-book version of which is available at https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=5791040 (government structures of most or all member countries of the United Nations).

Along the way to finding those two titles, I came across some others offering information about a more limited number of countries. They include the following:

* Appeals around the world - DLA Piper Global Litigation Guide, https://www.dlapiperintelligence.com/litigation/insight/index.html?t=06-appeals (32 countries summarized).

* Baker-McKenzie (law firm), Dispute Resolution Around the World (a series of separate “insight” publications addressing resolution of private disputes in specific countries, such as England and Wales, available at https://www.bakermckenzie.com/-media/files/insight/publications/2016/10/dratw/dratw_england_2013.pdf?la=en).

* Herbert Smith Freehills (law firm), Dispute Resolution in Africa: A Multi-Jurisdictional Review: Legal Guide, Second Edition (London, United Kingdom and Sydney, Australia: Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, 2016), https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/sites/contenthub_mothership/files/Guide%20to%20dispute%20resolution%20in%20Africa_w_bookmarksv2.pdf (51 countries summarized).

* Jean-Paul Jean and Hélène Jorry, Judicial Systems of the European Union Countries: Analysis of Data by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) (Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe, 2013), https://rm.coe.int/judicial-systems-of-the-european-union-countries-analysis-of-data-by-t/1680788280 (47 countries summarized).

By affirmatively discussing appellate court review in specific countries, all of these titles might help you narrow your search for any country in which appellate review is NOT available for first-instance court decisions involving private disputes. Good luck in your research!

David C. Steelman

Manchester, NH USA

[email protected]

· In several OECD countries lengthy civil proceedings can be a drag on economic activity. In the OECD area the average length is around 240 days in first instance, but in some countries a trial may require almost twice as many days to be resolved. Final disposition of cases may involve a long process of appeal before the higher courts, which in some cases can last more than 7 years.

· Differences in trial length appear to be more related to the structure of justice spending and the structure and governance of courts than to the sheer amount of resources devoted to justice. Factors associated with shorter trial length include larger shares of the justice budget devoted to court computerisation, the active management of the progress of cases by courts, the systematic production of statistics at the court level, the existence of specialised commercial courts and systems of court governance in which the chief judge has broader managerial responsibilities (e.g. covering supervision of non-judge staff and administration of the budget).

· There is wide scope for further informatisation of court activities in OECD countries. The majority of courts in OECD countries have electronic forms, websites and electronic registers, but many countries either have not yet implemented online facilities and the possibility for lawyers to follow up cases online, or have done so only in a minority of courts. Investments in court computerisation are related with higher productivity of judges (measured as cases solved per judge), especially in countries where computer literacy is widespread facilitating the take-up of ICT-based opportunities.

· Reducing high litigation rates through appropriate policies is a means to increase civil justice efficiency. Good quality regulation, timely and effective implementation of policies, integrity of the public sector and free negotiation of lawyers’ fees (as opposed to regulation) could all be important instruments for reducing litigation. And a lower number of new litigation cases per capita – which range across countries from almost ten cases to less than one case in one hundred people – is associated with a significant reduction in the average length of trials.

· In many countries there is potential scope for reducing appeal rates, a simple measure of the predictability of court decisions. Appeal rates are lower in countries where filing an appeal is subject to obtaining permission (leave). However, as restrictions to appeal imposed by law do not explain all of the cross-country differences in appeal rates, there would seem to be scope for increasing predictability of court decisions (leading to lower appeal rates) without tightening restrictions.

The court system in each of the 50 US states, with NO exceptions, is organized to provide for some form of meaningful appellate review of first-instance court decisions in civil litigation. Although most states have at least one intermediate appellate court, a minority of states do not, and civil appeals in those states are heard by the state court of last resort.

In most states, limited-jurisdiction first-instance court decisions in small claims or other civil matters with a small damage claim may be heard on appeal by a first-instance court of general jurisdiction. Unlike courts in countries with a civil-law (as opposed to common-law) tradition, review on appeal often does not involve review of fact determinations except in unusual circumstances.

There is considerable variation among states in terms of the scope of review and whether review is as a matter of right or discretion. For further information, see Ron Malega and Thomas H. Cohen, State Court Organization, 2011 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 242850, 2013), https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4802.

Not sure if this counts, in Zambia the Constitutional Court is a court of first instance and final resort with regards to Constitutional issues (except matters relating to the enforcement of the Bill of Rights). It is a superior court and ranks the same as the Supreme Court.

Yes, in the Iraqi Civil Procedure Law, Article 31 stipulates a group of lawsuits that are considered by a court of last instance and can be challenged with cassation only, such as the wage divorce lawsuit, the debt lawsuit, the lawsuit to eliminate communal ...

According to the researcher García Morillo, the right to effective judicial protection is usually defined as “the right of all persons to have access to the judicial system and to exercise, within the process, all their powers so that the jurisdictional bodies study their claim and issue a reasoned resolution and in accordance with the law that, accepting or rejecting said claim, establishes the official truth ”. I can affirm that judicial protection necessarily implies the presence of two elements: the denial of obstacles to access to judicial processes and the existence of minimum guarantees that contribute to their effectiveness. Likewise, it must be taken into account that the recognition of judicial protection as a right, contains in its content the right of action and is accompanied by others of ample caliber such as the requirement of a judge for the solution of the case, the right to information in the process, the right to a process without delay and with guarantees; that a reasoned judgment is issued, that it can be appealed and that said resolution be executed. Due process establishes the appeal of the judgments, so that the injured party can challenge said decision before other higher-ranking judges, with the capacity to reverse that ruling or ratify it. Such possibility offers the guarantee of a more certain decision by the judicial body and, at the same time, gives the injured party the necessary confidence that he can allege before another court the alleged infractions or violations that he considers were committed in his case and get the correction of these, if your request is valid.In Cuba, both the principle of effective judicial protection and due process are protected in the Constitution of the Republic approved in 2019. They also find development in the Law of Criminal Procedure and the Law of Civil, Administrative, Labor and Economic Procedure.

I hope my answer is useful to you. Greetings. Cara Warmuth

very good question

Dear Prof Steelman:

There is no “right to appeal” in the Chilean constitution, at least from a literal perspective. In the best-case scenario, the Chilean Constitution recognizes a general “due process” clause, in which part of the national doctrine considers that includes the right to appeal. In addition, there have been some rulings by the Chilean constitutional court that had considered that the right to appeal is part of the due process clause, but it seems these decisions were related to criminal cases.

However, it is worth clarifying that the right to appeal does not necessarily means a right to a full review of the case by the superior court (including not only law, but also a review of the evidence and the facts that were established by the first instance judge), but just the possibility that a second superior court will review the case in some part.

Notwithstanding, some part of the Chilean doctrine has argued that the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights establishes a right to appeal applicable to all subject-matters. It is correct that the Inter-American Convention in its article 8 h) establishes a right to appeal, however this right is only afforded to the criminal defendant in the context of a criminal conviction. There have been attempts by part of the Chilean doctrine to widen the meaning of the convention, however the way the convention regulates the topic is quite clear and most of the Inter-American Court of human rights’ jurisprudence is related to the right to appeal in criminal matters, with no case-law that explicitly extended its reach to civil matters and/or that demands a right to a complete and full review or doble instancia.

In adittion, practically every recourse that the Chilean legislation regulates, contemplates an admissibility stage, which basically looks at specific requirements, such as the recourse was presented in due time, regarding a judicial decision that is possible to challenge according to law and so on. This admissibility stage has lead in practice to a series of informal filtering mechanisms, but to our knowledge there are no empirical or jurisprudential studies on the matter.

Formally, however, there is no filtering mechanism such as a “leave to appeal” requests or equivalents to a certiorari.

Finally, about the filtering to access a final appeal to the Supreme Court, just like the previous answer above, we need to distinguishing the law on the books and the law in practice.

According to the law on the books, if the legal requirements are met, every person has the right to go up to the Supreme Court. However, there is some information that presents a different scenario in which informally, in the context of the admissibility stage, the Supreme Courts filters the recourses presented by the parties to control their workload.

المشكلة دائما عندما يبدأ التقاضي من محاكم الاستئناف. هنا تنعدم إمكانية وجود درجات استئنافية.

للاسف يوجد تقاضي على درجة واحدة