VPRS 5385 Full Court/Court of Appeal Minute Books

This series comprises volumes recording the Minutes of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and from 1995 the Court of Appeal. The minutes provide the Coram (the names of the judges sitting) with notations within the minutes indicating when its composition may change during the sitting of the Court. On the left-hand side are details of the cases being heard and the times of the hearing and on the right-hand side is a summary of the case, the names of the appearing counsel and the outcome of the hearing. The Full Court of the Supreme Court was established under the Supreme Court Act 1890. After an initial hearing and decision, a case could be appealed to a Full Court, which referred to all the judges of the Supreme Court, or not less than three Judges. This excluded the trial judge, as no judge was permitted to sit on an appeal from their own judgement. Prior to then, appeals were exclusively directed to the Privy Council. The Full Court heard appeals against the decisions of lower courts or the Supreme Court itself (sitting as a Court of Criminal Appeal); it considered references or cases stated on questions of law under a variety of Acts and exercised the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules of the Court. The Constitution (Court of Appeal) Act 1994 removed the responsibilities of the Full Court and introduced The Court of Appeal. Under this Act, the Court of Appeal had the jurisdiction to hear all appeals from the trial division (both civil and criminal), applications for new trials, and all appeals from the County Court constituted by a Judge.

本系列丛书收录维多利亚最高法院全院法庭（Full Court）以及自1995年起增设的上诉法庭（Court of Appeal）的庭审记录纪要。该纪要会记录合议庭组成人员（Coram，即到庭法官姓名）的相关信息，并标注庭审过程中法庭组成人员发生变更的节点；纪要左侧列有当前审理案件的详细信息及庭审时段，右侧则包含案件概要、出庭律师姓名以及庭审结果。维多利亚最高法院全院法庭依据1890年《最高法院法案》（Supreme Court Act 1890）设立，案件经初审庭审并作出裁决后，可上诉至全院法庭——全院法庭由最高法院全体法官组成，或至少由三名法官组成，且初审法官不得参与该上诉庭审，即任何法官均不得审理针对自身裁判作出的上诉案件。在此之前，上诉案件仅可提交至枢密院（Privy Council）。全院法庭负责审理针对下级法院或最高法院自身（以刑事上诉法庭（Court of Criminal Appeal）形式运作）作出的裁决的上诉案件，同时可依据多项法案审理法律问题提交的咨询或案件，并依照《法庭规则》（Rules of the Court）行使最高法院的监督管辖权。1994年《宪法（上诉法庭）法案》（Constitution (Court of Appeal) Act 1994）移除了全院法庭的部分职责并设立上诉法庭，依据该法案，上诉法庭拥有以下管辖权：审理来自审判庭的全部民事及刑事上诉、再审申请，以及由法官组成的郡法院（County Court）作出的全部上诉案件。