JUDGMENT AND APPEAL

Judgment and appeal are two sensitive words in law suits that cannot be neglected. These words always raise the roof in court cases such that parties are tensed when a day for judgment is fixed. Judgment is defined as the final decision of a court on a matter/case before it. Appeal on the other hand, is reference of a case from a lower court to a higher court for the latter to revisit the decision of the former on the case. A court does not sit on appeal on its own decision/judgment. This means that where judgment is given on your case by the High Court and you are not satisfied with the judgment, you cannot apply to the same High Court to reverse its decision. Reason being that once a court has decided on a case before it, it becomes functus officio. That is, it has completely discharged its duty as far the case is concerned. Therefore, what then is the fate of your appeal where you file an appeal against the judgment of a court given on your case? This, we are going to discuss below.

JUDGMENT.

Judgment can be affirmed/upheld, reversed, overruled or approved, on appeal.

Affirm/Uphold: Judgment given in a case is said to be affirmed/upheld on appeal if the higher court confirms or agrees with the decision of the lower court on the case. Illustratively, if judgment was given in your case by the Magistrate Court and you appealed against the decision to the High Court, and the High Court held thus- “ I hereby uphold/affirm the decision of the Magistrate Court on this case…”. What this means is that you lost both at the Magistrate Court and the High Court. You may accept the decisions of the courts or appeal further to the Court of Appeal.

Reverse: This is where the judgment of the lower court is rejected or turned down on appeal by a higher court. Here, the appellate court reaches an opposite decision from that of the lower court on the case.  In other words, if by the above scenario(see illustration on affirmed/upheld), the High Court did not agree with the decision of the Magistrate Court on your case, it can rightly be said that the judgment on your case was reversed on appeal. The effect of this is that you won on appeal while the Respondent lost. The Respondent may accept the decision of the High Court or appeal further to the Court of Appeal.

Overrule: The judgment of a lower court is said to be overruled on appeal if in a subsequent discussion of the judgment by a higher court in another case, the higher court declares the judgment to be bad law or to be wrong. Illustratively, you commenced an action against Mr. Okeke at the High Court in 2002 and judgment was given in your favour. In 2005, Mr. Ayo brought an action against Chief Kolawole at the High Court and judgment was given in Chief Kolawole’s favour. Mr. Ayo appealed against the judgment to the Court of Appeal. At the court of Appeal, Mr. Ayo cited the judgment of the High Court given in your case with Mr. Okeke as authority. The Court of Appeal looked at the judgment of the High Court in your case with Mr. Okeke and found that the decision was reached erroneously. The Court of Appeal, while giving its judgment in Mr. Ayo’s appeal before it declared the judgment of the High Court in your case to be bad law. This means that the Court of Appeal disagrees with that decision and in so doing, overrules it by declaring it a bad law.

Approve: This is the opposite of an overruled judgment. Judgment is said to be approved if in a subsequent visit of the judgment in a different case by a higher court, the higher court agrees with the reasoning of the judgment. The effect of this is that such approval stars and strengthens the judgment to be reliably cited as authority in any other case with similar issues/circumstances.

APPEAL.

An appeal against the decision/judgment of a lower court may be allowed or dismissed. Where an appeal is allowed, it means that the higher court disagrees with the decision of the lower court on the case being appealed against. This reverses the judgment, and the winner at the lower court becomes the loser. On the other hand, an appeal is dismissed if the higher court agrees with the judgment of the lower court being appealed against. This upholds/affirms the judgment and the winner at the lower court remains the winner at the appeal court.

 

Questions, suggestions and contributions are highly welcome. Please check my Mini Law Dictionary here.

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