The Court of Appeal determines civil appeals from most State courts and applications for judicial review in relation to "specified tribunals". Proceedings involving constitutional and other matters of general public importance may be commenced in the Court or referred to it for hearing at first instance. Figure 10 depicts the gateways for appeals from final judgments and orders and the Court's supervisory jurisdiction.
The Court of Appeal comprises the Chief Justice, the President and ten Judges of Appeal. The appointment of Justice Hodgson in April 2001 followed the retirement of Justice Fitzgerald.
Justice Priestley retired on 31 December 2001. The Chief Judge at Common Law and the Chief Judge in Equity are ex officio members of the Court who sit from time to time.


During 2001 the Honourable Justice D A Ipp, the Honourable J M N Rolfe QC, the Honourable J E H Brownie QC, the Honourable J D Davies QC, the Honourable G E Fitzgerald AC QC, the Honourable J H Mathews QC and the Honourable M L Foster QC held commissions as Acting Judges of Appeal. Judges of the Supreme Court were appointed ad hoc from time to time as additional Judges of Appeal.
On 129 days the President or a Judge of Appeal sat in the Court of Criminal Appeal. This meant that 169 judge-days were allocated to the Court of Criminal Appeal because of the practice of allowing one day's reading time for each sitting day wherever practicable. Justice Stein sat as an Acting Judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in February 2001.

ORGANISATION OF BUSINESS

New matters are initially scanned for competency and, if necessary, referred back to legal representatives to prove competency or seek leave to appeal.
Applications for leave to appeal are examined to see whether they are suitable to be heard concurrently with the argument on the appeal. The options of filing a holding notice of appeal or a holding summons remain popular with litigants and their advisers.
Appeals are listed for a directions call-over before the Registrar when a notice of appeal is filed.
At that call-over an appeal will be listed for hearing if the appellant's submissions have been filed. There is no holding list. Case management may be ordered for lengthy or complex appeals. Urgent matters are expedited and can be heard almost immediately if appropriate.

OPERATIONAL STATISTICS

The Court of Appeal maintains a database to monitor the caseload and performance of the Court. The input and disposal statistics are reported on a monthly basis and reviewed at Court of Appeal Judges' meetings, which occur approximately monthly.

New filings

There are three types of new filings: notices of appeal, summonses for leave to appeal and summonses for other relief (usually administrative law review). Inactive matters, that is holding notices of appeal and holding summonses for leave, are not treated as an input into the Court's workload for statistical or time management purposes. There was one return from the High Court of Australia during the year, the matter of Brodie v Singleton Shire Council [2001] HCA 29.
Table 12 shows the numbers of active matters (other than applications awaiting the grant of leave) pending
for the 12-month period until the end of December 2001 and the monthly inputs in that period.

Disposals

Since January 2000 disposals have been recorded as any such matters which reach final adjudication or are otherwise finalised in the Court. These are shown at Table 13.

Pending caseload

At the beginning of 2001 there was an active caseload of 460. Figure 11 shows the Court's pending active caseload by month during 2001.

Figure 11 Active Caseload at end of month

Prior to 2000, the pending caseload statistics included holding appeals and those holding appeals deemed discontinued. These are not included in the 2000 or 2001 statistics because they do not reflect any delay within the control of the Court. To enable a comparison the statistics for 1997 to 1999 have been recalculated to exclude holding appeals and those discontinued. Figure 12 reveals the trend over the past five years. It is evident that there is now a lower pending active caseload than at any other time during that period. Reduction of the pending active caseload during 2001 was achieved through a 21 per cent increase in the number of disposed cases and despite a four per cent increase in the number of new matters coming to the Court. During 2001 the Court disposed of 627 cases, compared with 517 during 2000. During 2001 there were 505 new cases filed, compared with 483 during 2000.

Figure 12. Active Caseload (as at 31 December)

Time standards

In January 2000 the Chief Justice announced that the performance of the Court of Appeal was to be measured against time standards.
Table 14 shows the time standards adopted for 2001 and the results obtained for appeals, summonses for other relief and refused leave applications during the year. Time to finalisation is time between commencement and date of judgment, settlement, discontinuance or striking out. Commencement is the date of filing the substantive notice of appeal or, if leave to appeal is required, the summons for leave to appeal.
The 6-month standard proved difficult to achieve. Performance against the 12-month time standard showed a marked improvement over the year, as did performance against the 18-month standard with the objectives achieved in later months of the year.
For 2002, the time standards will be: 50 per cent of cases disposed of within 6 months, 85 per cent of cases disposed of within 12 months and 100 per cent of cases disposed of within 18 months.

Leave applications

Leave applications are a significant component of the work of the Court of Appeal. If the parties agree, these applications can be dealt with on the papers. If one party seeks it, the papers will be referred to a Judge to consider whether a "rolled-up" hearing is appropriate: if it is, the application for leave and the contingent appeal hearing will be listed concurrently.

Other aspects of the Court's work

The High Court of Australia granted special leave to appeal in eight matters from the NSW Court of Appeal during 2001.
The Judges of the Court of Appeal attended various conferences of relevance to their functions during the year. Details of speeches given are contained in the Supreme Court's web pages. Of particular note was the attendance by the Chief Justice at the 4th Worldwide Common Law Judiciary conference in Vancouver, held 5-9 May 2001, followed by the Conference on Judicial Independence Celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the Act of Settlement in Vancouver, held 9-11 May 2001. The President attended the Appellate Judges' Seminar in Melbourne, held 30 November and 1 December 2001. In April 2001 the President presented a paper titled "Recurring Issues in the Court of Appeal" at the District Court Judges Conference. In March 2001 Justice Stein gave a keynote address at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon USA. He also participated in training sessions for visiting Indonesian Judges in May, September and October 2001.

Table 12. Inputs to the Court of Appeal

Month	Notices	Summonses	Returns from	Other	Total
	of appeal		High Court
January	25	1	0	0	26
February	29	2	0	1	32
March	55	1	0	3	59
April	41	2	0	0	43
May	32	1	1	2	36
June	44	1	0	1	46
July	44	0	0	2	46
August	53	5	0	1	59
September	37	0	0	0	37
October	38	1	0	1	40
November	33	1	0	0	34
December	46	1	0	0	47
Total	477	16	1	11	505

Table 13. Court of Appeal disposals

Month	Reserved	Extempore	Settled	Discontinued	Struck	Other	Total
	judgments	judgments			out
January	2	0	0	2	0	0	4
February	11	11	3	8	5	1	39
March	25	2	15	8	4	1	55
April	32	10	3	6	1	2	54
May	22	8	9	7	6	6	58
June	29	11	11	9	8	2	70
July	22	12	6	8	2	0	50
August	33	11	13	5	2	1	65
September	35	14	7	4	5	0	65
October	31	9	8	6	3	0	57
November	38	14	7	4	5	0	68
December	27	5	3	1	3	3	42
Total	307	107	85	68	44	16	627

Table 14. Performance against time standards