Upcoming Appeal

Hello All,

I have been following the posts on HC with interest and one of the subjects that I would like to comment on is this idea that the Appeal due in February is just a right to lodge an appeal and not a full Appeal. IMO this is incorrect.

The fact is that AVQ brought out an announcement on 27 October 2014 saying:

“SMM Solomon Limited (“Sumitomo”) has filed a notice of appeal to the Solomon Islands Court of Appeal in response to the judgment delivered in favour of Axiom KB Limited (“Axiom”) in the High Court case 258/11 between Sumitomo and others v Axiom, Solomon Islands Government and others.”

Previously to this I emailed a person (name and occupation undisclosed here because of privacy concerns) in the Solomon Islands to enquire about any pending appeal to the High Court ruling of 24 September 2014 and to try and ascertain how the law worked there in that regard (i.e. launching an Appeal via the S.I. Legislation). This is what my email on 23 October 2014 contained below:

"Hello ---------,
The reason I am emailing you is to find out if SMM have lodged a leave for appeal to the S.I. Appeals Court. I have been led to believe that this has not occurred yet.

I have also been told that an Application to Appeal has not yet been lodged with the Appeals Court.

It is also my understanding that the process for lodging an Appeal in Solomon Islands is to:
• First lodge a Leave for Appeal and once that is approved by the Appeals judges to then
• Put in an Application for Appeal. Could you please inform me if this is the way that an Appellant goes about appealing a High Court ruling.

I have also been studying the Solomon Islands Court of Appeal Act (1996) that states that an Appellant to the High Court ruling by Judge Brown on the 24th September (or for any High Court ruling), has 14 days to lodge a Leave for Appeal from the High Court date. This date passed on 8th October 2014.

The Act also states that an Application for Appeal must be lodged within 30 days of the High Court decision (24th September 2014). This means that the time for placing an Application to Appeal expires this Friday (24th October 2014).

Can you please inform me if a Leave for Appeal has been lodged by SMM or not.If it has indeed been lodged do you know if has been approved by the Appeals judges.

Could you please also inform me if an Application for Appeal has been lodged yet."

In reply to this email, I was told by this person that:

“Sumitomo confirmed they've filed their appeal with the Solomon Islands Court of Appeal today and the court accepted it.
But hearing wont' take place until sometimes next year.
The basis of the appeal has not been disclosed at this stage (24 October 2014).”
regards,
********************

So it appears that Leave to Appeal has already been lodged and accepted by the Appeals Judges back on early October 2014 (presumably on the same day that the interim injunction was set aside) and that consequently the Application to Appeal was filed and accepted on 24th October 2014.

In addition to the above I have also been told in previous discussions with representatives of AVQ that the upcoming case is a Full Appeal and this is what was meant by the 27 October 2014 announcement.

If anyone thinks differently to this please correct me and state EXACTLY how the appeal process works in regard to the Solomon Islands Court of Appeal Act (1996) and quote the relevant sections of the Act also.

Cheers and Happy 2015.