Extraordinary Appeals: new requirements

The Regulation will become effective the day after this winter court recess is over.

Even though the Regulation primarily contains formal requirements to be met in extraordinary appeals or direct appeals, it also states that the non-fulfillment of any of such requirements may allow the Supreme Court to reject the motions, simply by invoking the Regulation.

Among the requirements included in the Regulation, the following are of particular interest:

(a) Extraordinary Appeals shall not exceed forty pages while Direct Appeals shall not exceed ten. With respect to Direct Appeals, the Regulation states that their only purpose shall be to rebut the grounds of the resolution that denied the Extraordinary Appeal. Even though this criterion has already been established in several Supreme Court precedents, the Regulation gives certainty as to the object of Direct Appeals.

(b) Together with the Extraordinary Appeal or the Direct Appeal, the appellant shall file a title page or index containing general information that will help to identify the case in which such papers have been filed. In addition, for Extraordinary Appeals, this title page must also contain:

(i)    a clear and concrete reference to those matters of a federal nature;

(ii)    a reference to the regulations related to such federal matters and to the precedents of the Supreme Court applicable to said matters, if any;

(iii)   an indicative summary of the resolution that the appellant wishes to obtain from the Tribunal. The Regulation provides that no issue shall be considered unless it has been included in the title page.

(c) The Regulation specifies the copies that the appellant must file together with requests for Direct Appeals;

(d) The appellant must transcribe in the text of the writ or in a separate page, every rule or regulation that has not been published in the Official Gazette as well as the dates they came into force.

(e) Any reference to precedents of the Supreme Court must indicate the volume and page where they appear in the official collection.

The Regulation might seem to be a simple catalogue of formalities with which appellants must comply once the winter recess is over. Nevertheless, and despite the line of jurisprudence that is finally thereby adopted, it will be very important to ensure its compliance in order to avoid the risk of rejection due to formal defects of the filings.