Intricacies of Appealing General Jurisdiction Court Rulings on Civil Cases

1. What is the time period allotted to appeal a court ruling?

In general, parties to court rulings are given one month following the date that it was produced in its final form.

By law, upon examining a civil case, a judge is obligated to produce a ruling in its final form within 5 days following the announcement of the operative part of the ruling. In practice, however, this wait period may drag on for a long time after that and is extended based on the workload that the specific judge has.

2. What do you do if the appeal deadline is approaching but the final form of the ruling still isn't ready?

In that case, you’ll have to send a short appeal to the court declaring that it was impossible to submit a full appeal due to the final form of the ruling not having been previously ready.

In addition to that, we recommend contacting the chairman of the corresponding court and filing a motion to accelerate the process of devising the final form of the ruling.

3. What will happen if I don’t file the appeal by the established deadline?

In that case, the first instance court ruling will enter into effect. This will give the plaintiff the opportunity to obtain a writ of execution and submit it for enforcement.

If an appeal is submitted after the established deadline, it will have to be submitted along with an appeal petition to restore the appeal submission period, explaining the respectable reasons why the submission deadline wasn't met.

If the appeal arrives after the submission deadline without a petition to restore the missed deadline accompanying it, it will be returned to the appeal filer.

4. Where do I submit the appeal?

The appeal is to be submitted to an appeal instance court via the court that issued the ruling. For instance, a ruling issued by a court magistrate is to be appealed in the corresponding district court, but the appeal is to be submitted via the magistrate.

In the header of the appeal, the filer is to indicate the court authorized to examine the appeal.

5. What do I need to be attached to the appeal?

A receipt proving payment of the government fee, documents that the appeal was sent to the opponents, and copies of the power of attorney of the representative along with their law degree diploma are to be attached to the appeal (if the appeal is submitted by a representative).

6. Can additional evidence be added during the appeal stage?

As a general rule, it is not allowed to submit additional evidence during the appeal stage. However, additional evidence is admitted at this time if there are respectable reasons for the failure to submit them to the first instance court as well as in the case that the first instance court refused to admit it. For that reason, we recommend processing all motions to add evidence in written form.

7. How are cases examined in an appeals instance?

In the beginning of the court hearing, the relator will read off the summary of the lawsuit, objections to the lawsuit, the court ruling, and then the appeal. Then he will listen to the parties speak. Meanwhile, the parties have a very limited amount of time to state their positions in the appeal. For that reason, we recommend writing down the main points one by one and listing them out in court.

Situations sometimes arise in which the judge of an appeal instance asks the question “Do the parties have anything to add to the appeal or would they like to voice any objections to it?” In that case, we recommend stating the most important argument of the appeal, rather than try to quickly restate the appeal in the person's own words.

8. What happens after an appeal is examined?

After examining an appeal, the court issues an appellate ruling. The court will later prepare the operative part of the ruling and send the case materials to the first instance court.

9. What do I do if I don't agree with the appellate ruling?

In the event that you disagree with the appellate ruling, you will have 3 months to submit a cassation appeal. Meanwhile, the time period to submit the appeal begins counting as of the date that the ruling is announced, not the date that it was prepared in its final form.

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