Stephen Sedley writes:

For civil litigants who have lost their case at trial, the gate to an appeal is strait and the way relatively narrow. Except where personal liberty is involved, only appeals gauged by the court to have a realistic prospect of success are sent through to a full hearing. It is at this point that the trial judge’s findings of fact can prove terminal. A litigant, or a litigant’s witness, who has been disbelieved at trial will have the greatest difficulty in reopening the judgment, because appellate courts, which see only the written record, accord something close to sanctity to the opinion of the tribunal which was able to look the witness in the eye. The authors of The Court of Appeal are uneasy about this, and so are many judges.

(LRB 6 September 2007)

Hart | hardback 196 pp. |ISBN: 9781841133874