In the practice of the common-law courts of England—that is, the court of queen's bench, the court of common pleas, and the court of exchequer, or, as is put by lord Coke, any court whose proceedings arc regulated by the common law—the procedure by way of A. was, as stated at the beginning of this article, technically not so called, but was also called error, the party complaining of the judgment being called the plaintiff in error, instead of appellant, and his opponent, the eefendant in error, instead of of respondent. Formerly, the proceedings commenced by suing- out a writ of error first to a court of intermediate A., once the court of exchequer chamber, and afterwards by a further writ of error to the house of lords. But by the common-law procedure act of 1852 (15 and 16 Viet. c. 76, s. 148). writs of error are abolished, and now the word appeal is used in all cases indiscriminately.
Error also lies to the high court in criminal cases, when, after judgment, it is con sidered that the indictment is bad in substance, or that the judgment is erroneous, or in respect of any other substantial defect appearing on the face of the record. A court called the court for crown cases reserved, consisting of five judges, disposes of cases where the judge or court had some doubt at the trial as to a point of law. And there is also practically an appeal to a superior court from all magistrates' decisions on points of law.
to redress by way of A. and error against the judgments in the courts of Ireland, the procedure is so similar to that hitherto employed with respect to the English courts, that we need not here enter into particulars on the subject. We may simply remark, generally, that the Irish chancellor, sitting alone, does not appear to exercise any appellate control over courts inferior to his own, such as that possessed by the chancellor in England; for, according to the Irish practice, the A., for instance, from the master of the rolls, and in the case of proceedings in bankruptcy, is not to the chancellor himself alone, but to the court of A. in chancery, in which the chancellor and a lord justice of A. are the appointed judges; and which court of A. likewise reviews the chancellor's own indi vidual judgments. The judgments of this court of A. itself, however, may afterwards be reviewed on A. by the house of lords. In criminal procedure, the same act (11 and 12 Vict. c. 78) applies to Ireland as well as to England.
In the procedure of the Scotch courts, there are various appeals in the practice of the sheriff or county courts, and in the proceedings in bankruptcy; and the house of lords reviews the judgments of the court of session, the supreme civil court of the country, and which tribunal, indeed, it may be said, supplies the house with a large portion of its judicial business. This circumstance has frequently been remarked on as proving a
litigious disposition on the part of the Scotch; but perhaps the greater number of Scotch appeals over English and Irish may be more fairly said to be occasioned by a natural feeling on the part of litigants and lawyers in Scotland, that there is a better chance of a nice and critical examination of the judgments appealed against by such judges as preside in the house of lords, whose legal and judicial minds -have been formed under a different and larger system of jurisprudence than prevails in Scotland, than there would be to a tribunal composed entirely of Scotch lawyers. Indeed, although the judicial staff of the house of lords are chiefly English lawyers, the system of A. to their lordships from the Scotch courts works extremely well, and gives entire satis faction to the Scotch people. Some of the most valuable elucidations of the peculiar principles of Scotch law are to be found in the judgments in Scotch appeals by the chancellors and other law lords who, since the union with Scotland, have administered the jurisdiction of the house in the last resort, but who were never in a Scotch court, and, until called upon to discharge such responsible functions, had nothing but Eng lish experience. In 1875 it was left uncertain whether Scotch and Irish appeals should continue to be to the house of lords, and settled in 1876 that they should.
There is no A. to the house of lords from Scotland in criminal cases, nor does the above-mentioned act-11,and 12 Vict. c. 78, creating a court of criminal A. for England and Ireland—extend to Scotland. But the high court of justiciary there, which is the supreme criminal tribunal, and is composed of seven judges of the court of session, pre sided over by the lord justice general, or lord president, as he is otherwise called, reviews the procedure of all the criminal courts of the country (excepting where such jurisdic tion is expressly excluded by statute); and it is believed that no inconvenience is experi enced in consequence of there being no other or further A. from the sentences of these courts.