APPEAL' (from Let. appellarc, to address, appeal to, call, summon). In English legal pro cedure. a term that has two distinct meanings.
( It denotes an accusation by a private person against another for seine heinous crime, demand ing punishment on acount of the injury to the appellor, rather than for the public offense. This method of prosecution remained in force until abolished by act of Parliament in 1819 (59 Geo.
c. 46), although it had been used but rarely for a century prior thereto. The last appeal of murder brought in England (which led to the enactment of the statute above referred to) was that of Ashford Thornton, instituted in ISIS, and reported in 1 Barnwell and Alderson, 405. See Blackstone, Commentaries.
(2) The other signification, attached to the term by Blackstone, is that of a complaint to a su perior court of an injustice done by an inferior one. The object of such an appeal is td secure the reversal or modification of the decision of the inferior court through the intervention of a superior tribunal. Originally, the word was con fined to a proceeding for the review of a decision in an equity, an admiralty, or an ecclesias tical cause. Common-law judgments were re
viewed by a writ of error. The chief distinction between a writ of error and an appeal was that the former brought before the higher court only errors of law in the court below, while the latter brought up questions of fact as well as of law. The tendency of modern legislation is toward the abolition of forms of action and the substitution of an appeal for a writ of error. The grounds of appeal, the courts to which an appeal may be taken, and the methods of prose cuting appeals, are regulated in the various jurisdictions by statutes and court rules. These are so diverse that no attempt will be made, here, to state their provisions. See COURT; PLEADING.
In parliamentary law, appeal denotes the pro ceeding by which a member tests the correctness of a ruling of the presiding officer by calling for a vote of the meeting thereon. See PARLIAMENT ARY LAW.