YES, OF course.
You can appeal any decision of a court.
So, if you’re disqualified from driving by the district court, you can appeal this disqualification.
The appeal will come before the circuit court, the higher court.
Will it be the same judge again?
"it will be a different judge.
It has to be.
After all, if your appeal came
in front of the same judge again,
what would be the point of appealing?"
I am always surprised by how often I’m asked this question.
But that’s me looking at this with my lawyer hat on, not ‘my public hat’.
Just because something is obvious to me, doesn’t mean its obvious to other people.
Yes, it will be a different judge hearing your appeal.
The lower court in the country is the district court. There are judges assigned to the district court. They’re called -surprise, surprise- district court judges.
The appeal court is the circuit court. There are judges assigned to this court also. They’re circuit court judges.
But judges who are assigned to the district court do not work in the circuit court, and vice versa.
That means if you appeal a decision of a district court judge to disqualify you, the appeal comes in front of a circuit court judge.
So, it will be a different judge.
It has to be.
After all, if your appeal came in front of the same judge again, what would be the point of appealing?
Can you still drive if you’re disqualified from driving?
You can drive for 14 days after the disqualification and then the disqualification takes effect, unless you appeal.
In other words, when a court disqualifies you, the disqualification begins 14 days afterwards.
As long as you have filed your appeal you can drive until the appeal comes up.
Why? Why doesn’t the disqualification begin on the day of court?
Why do you have to wait 14 days?
Because when the court disqualifies you, you do have the right of appeal.
If the disqualification took effect immediately, i.e. the day that you were convicted, how could you appeal?
So, the law sensibly allows a period of 14 days after your conviction in the district court to allow you to appeal, if you choose to do so.
If you don’t appeal, your disqualification takes effect 14 days after the date of your conviction in court.
But if you decide not to appeal, you may still drive for a short period.
Let me explain.
"Judges are human; they don’t all think the same you know.
Some of them don’t even like one another.
So the fact that they might come to a different conclusion
to another judge is to be expected."
SOME PEOPLE MAY not choose to appeal but instead, want to postpone the disqualification to “get their affairs in order” i.e. arrange lifts to/from work etc. before D-Day arrives.
The law does allow for a disqualification to be postponed for up to 6 months.
The maximum period is 6 months.
That would mean that instead of your disqualification starting 14 days after your conviction, it would start 6 months later.
But the judge has discretion here.
In truth some judges are reluctant to postpone the disqualification for up to 6 months. They don’t really see the point. Its usually somewhere between 2-4 months, rarely 6.
That’s because they take the view that the sooner you start the disqualification, the sooner you can get back on the road in the future.
Which makes sense.
How many times can I appeal?
Once.
In other words, if your appeal is unsuccessful in the circuit court, that’s it.
And you go off the road that day.
There’s no “14 days” afterwards before the disqualification kicks in either.
If you lose your appeal, your disqualification begins that day, i.e. immediately.
There is a caveat to this.
Just like the district court, you can ask the appeal court to postpone your disqualification.
In other words, just like the district court, that the disqualification would begin at some date over the next 6 months.
Why would you appeal?
Why would you not?
I’m not trying to be funny here but being disqualified from driving for 2 or 3 years (or more) is fairly disastrous.
Its unthinkable in most people’s book.
Your appeal will be re-heard by a totally different judge, and they may take a different view of evidence.
Judges are human; they don’t all think the same you know.
Some of them don’t even like one another.
So the fact that they might come to a different conclusion to another judge is to be expected.
AN APPEAL IS known as a “de novo” hearing.
“De novo” is an old Latin term meaning that the circuit court will hear the case all over again and will not have any idea how the district court judged the case.
Whatever conclusions or assumptions that were made by the lower court have no relevance to the appeal court.
So, you get two bites of the cherry with two different judges.
Or as some people like to see it, “a second chance to get the right decision”.
Life is all a matter of perspective.
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