[Podcast] Appeals: When is a trial judge wrong?

5:30 pm on Monday 19th October, 2020

What did the seminar cover?

Appeals are characterised by a tension between two competing considerations. On the one hand, appeals serve an important public and private function in correcting errors by trial judges. On the other, appellate courts must be cognisant of their natural limitations and must give due respect to the advantages enjoyed by trial judges. How this dichotomy between appellate obligation and appellate restraint is resolved determines not only how appellate courts decide appeals, but also how counsel argue appeals.

Attendees joined an English Court of Appeal judge and experienced counsel in a discussion of the diverging approaches to this issue taken by Australian and English law.