VPRS 5385 Full Court/Court of Appeal Minute Books

Full description

This series comprises volumes recording the Minutes of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and from 1995 the Court of Appeal.

The minutes provide the Coram (the names of the judges sitting) with notations within the minutes indicating when its composition may change during the sitting of the Court. On the left-hand side are details of the cases being heard and the times of the hearing and on the right-hand side is a summary of the case, the names of the appearing counsel and the outcome of the hearing.

The Full Court of the Supreme Court was established under the Supreme Court Act 1890. After an initial hearing and decision, a case could be appealed to a Full Court, which referred to all the judges of the Supreme Court, or not less than three Judges. This excluded the trial judge, as no judge was permitted to sit on an appeal from their own judgement. Prior to then, appeals were exclusively directed to the Privy Council. The Full Court heard appeals against the decisions of lower courts or the Supreme Court itself (sitting as a Court of Criminal Appeal); it considered references or cases stated on questions of law under a variety of Acts and exercised the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules of the Court.

The Constitution (Court of Appeal) Act 1994 removed the responsibilities of the Full Court and introduced The Court of Appeal. Under this Act, the Court of Appeal had the jurisdiction to hear all appeals from the trial division (both civil and criminal), applications for new trials, and all appeals from the County Court constituted by a Judge.