According to the Constitution, any citizen of our country has the right to justice that meets the principles of justice and objectivity. To exercise your right, you can contact the court to appeal the decision. This happens in the manner prescribed by the legislation of our state. Of course, the system is bureaucratic and difficult enough to understand, but justice can be achieved, it is enough to be persistent. There is an appeal against a sentence that has entered into legal force, if there is a statement, the grounds for its consideration. All this is strictly regulated by applicable legal acts. In total, this approach allows us to talk about the absolute legitimacy of the procedure.
Restoring justice
An appeal is possible if the decision has been made, but has not yet entered into force. Quite often, according to the results of the court, there are participants who disagree with the adopted decision. According to the laws in force, such participants have the right to another hearing. Moreover, the procedure for appealing against a sentence involves the search and provision of evidence on the essence of the matter. Each interested person can propose facts for consideration, from which it follows that someone is guilty or, conversely, there is no fault for him.
The appeal of the verdict is considered one of the most significant, effective methods of achieving justice in the proceedings before the court. The peculiarity of the approach to the proceedings is as follows: since hearings have already taken place, both sides are guided by what constitutes an adversary. Some only at the time of the appeal finally understand that you need to take the help of lawyers with specialized education, who can turn the matter towards justice. In fact, the appeal of the court’s verdict in criminal and administrative proceedings presupposes a constructiveness that is significantly greater than the trial of the first instance. The fact that the parties begin to compete professionally by pulling the “blanket” to their side plays a role.
How it works?
Appealing a verdict in a criminal case by administrative appeal assumes that participants know their competencies and act within a given framework. At the same time, the defense argues its position by appealing to the court and asking for a milder sentence, the accused believes that the sentence was imposed too severe and should be reviewed in the direction of sympathy and justice, and the prosecutor demands the opposite.
The first instance is a variety of species, including the world. The next step in the hierarchical ladder is the regional authorities. At the regional level, there are supervisory, cassation instances. To request an appeal, you must go to the appeals court. If the verdict is handed down by a world court, you will have to go to the district, then go to the regional and so on. First, the documents are submitted to the first instance, and after that they are redirected to where they will work on appeal of the verdict.
Waiting, wait ...
A formal appeal of a court’s verdict in a criminal case is made within ten days from the moment the court made an official decision. In relation to some individuals, they may decide to arrest them. Then the period begins to count from the moment when the act is passed from hand to hand.As soon as the specified time period passes, submitting a complaint becomes useless - the authorities responsible for justice will not study the late document. But if you can prove that the delay occurred for a good reason, then the period is restored. In order for the process to proceed legally, you need to send a lawsuit to the court, on which you need to appeal the court verdict.
Further, the procedure is carried out in the same manner as a regular court examination of a case received in clerical work. True, the evidence can be investigated in a somewhat simplified order. The judge himself decides how thoroughly it is necessary to study the full amount of information provided to him and whether it is advisable to examine in detail all that the parties of the process offer.
Restore justice!
An appeal against a court verdict was invented for a reason. Quite often, complex cases fall into the court, which only professional lawyers who are very well versed in the peculiarities of existing laws can correctly solve. In this case, the situation is confused by evidence, evidence and circumstances that conflict with each other. And only an appeal against a sentence that has entered into force helps in the case, for example, of a criminal process, to avoid wrong conviction and punishment. And such a thing, as you know, greatly changes a person’s life. Even if the punishment is imposed conditional, it leaves an imprint on the future, because you will have to mention the criminal record when drawing up a variety of documents, and people around you will not trust. In a word, there are many problems.
If in the course of the case the circumstances were contradictory, and the standards of law were applied incorrectly, incorrectly, appeal of the verdict can save a person. For this, it is necessary to provide evidence to the court, supplementing the situation already known to justice. If they are evaluated as compelling, collected by law and not contradicting it in essence, then the appealed party can count on the full satisfaction of its requirements. Many lawyers consider even partial accounting of new information, leading to a change in the final decision, to be a victory. However, situations are not uncommon when the applicant wants the case to turn in his direction, but does not take into account the rule of law. The court of cassation finally asserts whether the parties ’conclusions comply with the practice of the judicial instances of our country.
Appeal: how to file?
The laws set the format for filing a complaint, on the basis of which an appeal against the sentence is made. If the document is sent to the authority without observing the terms and conditions, then it is returned to the sender without consideration. Usually, this sets the deadline by which the paper must be corrected so that the court takes note of it and sets up a process for additional consideration of the case. But if the time limit for appealing the verdict has approached, and the author of the application has not corrected the mistakes made, he will have to come to terms with the decision of the court - the verdict takes effect.
According to the rules, the complaint must contain:
- name of the court authority;
- data about the document submitter;
- information on the points at which the court decision does not comply with the laws;
- arguments on the basis of which the court may conclude that additional consideration is necessary to (possibly) change the decision.
The document must be signed with your own hand. Without a “live” signature, the court will not consider the application, even if all other conditions are met.
What time?
To appeal the verdict under the law are allocated:
- 15 days for the district authority;
- 30 for the region;
- 45 for the High Court.
Procedure: how does this happen?
If the decision has entered into force, it is possible to request verification of its legality. There are special state authorities authorized by law to carry out such checks. The procedure is initiated by writing a statement on the merits.Cassation and appeal are similar in many ways, but differ in features:
- need to contact the cassation instance;
- a full layout is provided by decision of the court of appeal;
- the request is described in essence of a contentious issue.
If there is no reason, then the decision is not reviewed, the verdict cannot be appealed.
The appeal procedure itself is somewhat different from the appeal. So, if the appeal is sent to the Supreme Court, the chairman has the right to appoint an additional audit of the case even when the responsible persons decided that there are no grounds for review.
A cassation appeal is considered for a month, but when applying to the Armed Forces for this is given two months. Judges vote, based on the results, a decision is made on the issue. In this case, first formulate a proposal favorable to the applicant. The last vote is left to the chairman. If the vote gives equal results for both outcomes, the application is rejected. Repeatedly, for the same reason, it is not possible to request a review - laws prohibit this.
Supervisory authorities
Among these are the Presidium in our country. They turn to him for justice in the following cases:
- the prosecutor wants to appeal the acquittal by a court;
- the victim wants to appeal the decision, believing that the punishment is too lenient for a perfect misconduct;
- the crime involves damage, the claims of the victims remained unsatisfied;
- the convicted person (lawyers representing the defense) considers that circumstances allowing to mitigate the sentence were ignored.
They consider a complaint for a month, and can extend the term by half if they consider it necessary to familiarize themselves with the case file in detail. The decision is made in the same way as in the cassation instance.
Special order
Our legislation does not allow the application of a special procedure for appeal procedures. This is due to the fact that in the first instance in such cases a decision is made when the accused agrees with the conclusions made on the merits of the matter, which becomes an occasion to mitigate the punishment. This means that an additional appeal to the supervisory authority in order to obtain additional mitigation is only an attempt to evade the punishment prescribed by law. And this, in turn, violates the agreement that the court and the accused concluded.
We do not agree!
It follows from judicial practice that, very rarely, the accused, in passing a sentence not in his favor, agrees with this decision. This is most typical for criminal litigation. Almost always, the victims insist on toughening measures against the accused, and the guilty party wants to be punished more softly, or even all charges will be dropped. Of course, one should defend one’s interests using the opportunities provided by the law, especially if the participant in the process feels right, knows that his position is fair.
Before writing an appeal, you need to adequately weigh the consequences, which are not only positive. Often, an appeal becomes the reason for a tougher sentence, as the procedure leads to the identification of new points available to strengthen the prosecution's position.
Complain above: victims
In most cases, writing an appeal is painless and safe for the victim, since it is precisely in this situation that he is not in danger. The court can uphold the previous sentence or replace the punishment for the accused, but it certainly won’t do anything to the person who is the victim of the case, unless he redirects the case for further consideration, suggesting the victim is re-qualified to another quality (for example, they will be guilty of it). But these cases are extremely rare.
At the same time, timely appeal in a civil lawsuit often leads to the fact that large amounts of money are recovered in favor of the victim, especially if circumstances that change the requirements of the victim were not taken into account in the first consideration. On the other hand, you need to understand that the court can reject the application or the review of the case will not do anything in favor of the victim, and time will be spent on this procedure, and considerable.
Complain above: the defendants
If the accused in the case sends a request for review of the results of the case, it will not become a reason for the weighting of measures applied to the punished person, but there is an opportunity to mitigate the court decision. This is due to the fact that in the first instance, not every court takes into account all the circumstances that allow making the punishment milder. For example, the appearance of the offender on a voluntary basis, the grounds for changing the term to a conditional one, are ignored.
An appeal allows you to exercise your right to justice, which is relevant if the sentence has been passed regarding an innocent person. Such a petition may provoke additional proceedings, allowing to restore an honest name, rehabilitate in society. Remember that court practice knows cases where an appeal led to the complete acquittal of the accused. So, you need to fight for your interests to the last. But you need to be prepared for a negative result when the court refuses to consider or decides to re-qualify the case as a more serious crime. In order not to get into a more unpleasant situation, the appeal procedure must be initiated with the help of a professional lawyer, previously analyzing the situation of the convicted person. You also need to understand that the appeal procedure will delay the time of detention or in other conditions of restriction of freedom.
Appeal: time intervals
Ten days have already been mentioned. But if you need to appeal a sentence that has already entered into legal force, then the law gives it a full year. During this period, you can write a cassation appeal or to a supervisory authority. If you miss the time period declared by law, you need to evaluate whether this happened by inattention or if there are good circumstances. Lawyers usually help in finding these. In a statement of appeal, it is worth pushing for aspects of the incorrect use of legal norms, unfair decisions, violations of legal standards by the court. You can also indicate that the judicial findings did not correspond to the circumstances of the conflict. If these factors did occur in the initial trial, you can count on a positive decision and the initiation of an additional court.