Talk:Court of appeals (disambiguation)

Another Merger

There is a seperate article on Court of Appeal that i've proposed to merge into this one. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thesocialistesq (talk • contribs)

It never should have been changed from a redirect to this page. (I've restored it.) Ewlyahoocom 17:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Or a redirect the other way: The article has: "Court of Appeals or (outside the U.S. and in some American states) Court of Appeal". Well, "outside the U.S. and in some American states" would seem to be... most of the World no? Hakluyt bean 19:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's my view. "Court of Appeals" feels very US to me. We only have a Court of Appeal here. Non-English courts tend to have singular terms for their function (eg Cour de Cassation), so "Court of Appeal" is the better translation. Why not stick with "Court of Appeals" as a US page, with a note under "Court of Appeal" to point here? The US approach to appeals seems more formalist and record driven than in most common law jurisdictions which seem far more fluid. Francis Davey 08:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge?

Any thoughts on why we shouldn't merge this with appellate court and Appeals court? Court of Appeal is essentially just an alternate name for an appellate court in certain parts of the world, so it doesn't seem distinct enough to warrant its own article. -- PullUpYourSocks 17:56, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Appeals court" and "appellate court" are both generic terms and those articles should be merged. "Court of Appeals", however, is a proper noun naming particular courts. It's used for different levels of appellate courts in different systems, though. I think this article is useful in noting the different uses of this specific term. Not every appellate court is a Court of Appeals. Court of Appeals is for major sentences.JamesMLane 18:07, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Every "Court of Appeals" is an appellate court, however. Maybe it's enough to note the different formal designations on appellate court and supreme court; otherwise, this is merely a list of unrelated courts that happen to have the same name. Postdlf 18:17, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am in favour of a merge, with the new article entitled "appellate court". "Court of Appeals" could remain as a disambiguation page to point to courts actually called "Court of Appeals". The current title is strictly NPOV. We don't have a Court of Appeals here in England and Wales (its the Court of Appeal). In Scotland the equivalent body is part of the Court of Session, and so on. Better by far to use the NPOV title to point to specific things, retaining POV. Incidently someone has changed the reference in Appeal from appellate court to Court of Appeals, which is even less helpful. Francis Davey 21:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

They appear to have been merged, but now according to our naming conventions the "A" in the article name should be lowercase, Court of appeals. Gene Nygaard 18:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Full Court of Appeals

I often read the term "Full Court of Appeals" but have no idea what this is. What exactly is the difference between a court of appeals and a full court of appeals? Is one more senior than the other? Does it have more judges? Is it one level below the supreme court? I suggest adding and defining this term to this topic.

The Machine 20:18, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

In the U.S. federal judicial system, each Circuit Court of Appeals has several judges (I think the Ninth Circuit, with more than two dozen, is the largest). All appeals are heard initially by a panel of three of the judges. On rare occasions, a panel decision will be subject to en banc review, meaning that the case is reconsidered by all the members of the court. An en banc decision is frequently referred to as one from the "full Court of Appeals". So the answer to all your questions is "No -- it's the same court."

This point is explained in the article on United States Court of Appeals, which is linked to from here. I don't think it should be included in this article unless the practice is used in any of the other courts mentioned here. JamesMLane 07:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, James. I read the explanation of en banc in United States Court of Appeals, as well as the en banc topic. You still may want to consider adding to these topics the fact that en banc is also know as "a full appeals court". This phrase appears in many media articles, such as this one. I am not enough of "legal expert" to make this change myself!

The Machine 13:37, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Rename this article?

The current version of the article is problematic for a variety of reasons. When you begin the article, it appears to be about different courts around the world that have as a formal name either "Court of Appeals" or "Court of Appeal". But then we have sections on the courts in France and Germany which obviously do not have that as their formal name (or the English translation of their formal name, as far as I can tell). I think the article "wants" to be an annotated list of appellate courts around the world whose level is just below the country's final court of appeal. Maybe the article should be renamed to Penultimate courts of appeal. Comments? --Mathew5000 19:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment - I am sympathetic to your discomfort. What this article should really be is a general theoretical discussion of appeal and comparative analysis of different jurisdictions but no editor knows enough to attempt that, even assuming that it is possible without original research. However, I think that your proposed rename is not sufficiently suggestive for it to be much use to users. I do despair of the whole law project. It needs some leadership.Cutler 22:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Concur: Cutler said it well, although I strongly disagree with his/her assessment that the article cannot be written the way it should be; any second-year law student with access to a Lexis or Westlaw account could put together a fairly comprehensive start, Charles Alan Wright and Arthur R. Miller have written extensively on this. Of course, a lawyer, law student or otherwise sufficiently informed editor has to have the time and willingness to actually do the work. I am not going to volunteer for this, and I wouldn't be surprised if no one else does either, at least not any time soon.

Another problem with the proposed rename, the New York Court of Appeals and the New York Supreme Court are actually named contrary to the customary expectation, and situations such as this are bound to cause confusion. dr.ef.tymac 23:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually I would say that the article appeal should contain the general theoretical discussion of appeal (see Talk:Appeal#approach to this article). The present article (Court of Appeals) I believe was originally supposed to be a survey of all courts with that name and then gave some information as to what the counterpart would be of the U.S. Court of Appeals (or English Court of Appeal) in France, Germany, etc. --Mathew5000 00:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

(EC) Agreed, also your comment on that article's talk page seems to sum up the matter quite well. I wasn't even aware of the other article. However, that still does not address how to handle the potential confusion for cases such as the state of New York.

From your past discussion points, it seems like you have a very good grasp on what it takes to keep the content from becoming too confusing, but I'm not too confident that every other editor who comes along after you will have the same editorial discipline. No matter how you slice it, these articles need a lot of work and maintenance. Nevertheless, if you want to adjust the article as you suggest, that seems pretty reasonable. dr.ef.tymac 00:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The situation in New York (for example) is explained pretty well in the article state supreme court under the heading "Terminology". If the article Court of Appeals is converted to a disambiguation page, then it would list both New York Court of Appeals and (for example) Wisconsin Court of Appeals without explaining that those two courts serve different functions within their state. But the difference would be explained at New York Court of Appeals as well as both state supreme court and state court#Nomenclature. --Mathew5000 01:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, just to clarify, the new plan of action is to change this to a disambiguation page, and not to Penultimate courts of appeal. If this is correct, then it sounds like a good plan. dr.ef.tymac 02:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A better solution is probably to convert this article into two different disambiguation pages, Court of Appeals (disambiguation) and Court of Appeal (disambiguation). Each would have a list of articles on courts whose name includes that specific phrase. The information currently in the article about Australia, France, and Germany, would be deleted, but it isn't such a great loss. For example, look at how confusing the article currently is in what it says about Australia:

“In Australia State Courts of Appeal, where they exist (The Australian Capital Territory does not have a Court of Appeals and appeals from The ACT Supreme Court are heard in The High Court of Australia), are appellate divisions of the State Supreme Courts rather than being separately constituted;....”

--Mathew5000 00:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. Court of Appeal and Court of Appeals are now disambiguation pages, distinct from each other. --Mathew5000 10:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Also I made pages for Court of Criminal Appeal (disambiguation) and Court of Criminal Appeals. --Mathew5000 10:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

In order to allay confusion (and deal with the plethora of links to these pages) I have boldly moved Court of Appeal and Court of Appeals to Court of Appeal (disambiguation) and Court of Appeals (disambiguation), redirected the original titles to a stub article on Appellate court, and put a note on top of that article directing searches to the aforementioned newly titled disambiguation pages. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Establishing new category for appellate courts?

While we're on the subject, I note that Wikipedia has Category:Appellate review (containing articles relating to the scope and standard of appellate review) but there is no Category:Appellate courts. I would propose creating that category. Some might argue that it would not be well-defined, since it is quite common for appellate courts to have some original jurisdiction and for trial courts to have some appellate jurisdiction. However I believe that if we defined "appellate court", for purposes of the category, as including both (a) a court whose primary purpose is to exercise appellate jurisdiction (example: Manitoba Court of Appeal) and (b) a court with at least one division whose primary purpose is to exercise appellate jurisdiction (example: Supreme Court of Queensland), then it should be straightforward in almost all cases to determine whether or not an article belongs in this category. The existing Category:National supreme courts would be a subcategory of Category:Appellate courts which would be a subcategory of Category:Courts. Comments on that? --Mathew5000 00:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Mathew5000 23:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)