Criminal appeals against decisions of the General Division of the High Court

A Notice of Appeal is a signed form that indicates your intention to appeal. You need to file your appeal via eLitigation.

When to file:

• In an appeal against conviction, or an appeal against conviction and sentence, you must file a Notice of Appeal within 14 days after the date of the sentence. If you wish to appeal against conviction, you should not file the appeal until the lower court imposes a sentence for the offence.
• In any other case, you must file a Notice of Appeal within 14 days after the date of the judgment, sentence or order.

Note: The number of days includes weekends, but excludes the day on which the judgment, sentence or order was made.

Note: If you miss the deadline, you have to file a criminal motion to the Court of Appeal to apply for an extension of time to appeal.

For the Notice of Appeal, you will need to state:

• Your case information (Case number, date, court number, parties involved).
• Briefly, the substance of the judgment, sentence or order appealed against (for example, “appeal against conviction” or “appeal against conviction and sentence”).
• Your address, to receive any appeal documents.
• Your NRIC number and contact number.

The court will prepare the record of proceedings and send you a notice to collect the documents at the Supreme Court Service Hub. If you are legally represented, a copy of the record of proceedings will be served via eLitigation.

The record of proceedings include:

• Grounds of decision: The court’s reasons for its decision.
• Notes of evidence: A word-for-word transcript of what was said in court during the trial or plead guilty mention.
• Exhibits: Copies of documents or objects presented as evidence during the trial.

A Petition of Appeal states the grounds (reasons) on which you are appealing against the court’s decision. It must contain sufficient particulars of any points of law or fact which the appellant claims the trial court decided wrongly. The Petition of Appeal must be filed via eLitigation.

When to file:

Within 14 days after service of the record of proceedings and grounds of decision.

• If you miss the deadline, you have to file a criminal motion to the Court of Appeal to apply for an extension of time to appeal.
• If you do not file within the deadline, the court will treat your appeal as withdrawn.

After you have filed the Petition of Appeal, the Court of Appeal will inform you of your appeal hearing date (if any) by post and email.

When to file:

By 4pm on the Monday 3 weeks before the start of the sitting period of the Court of Appeal within which the appeal hearing is scheduled, regardless of the actual day (within that sitting period) on which that appeal or matter is scheduled for hearing. This is subject to the court giving different directions.

File written submissions via eLitigation.

• Written submissions are the arguments you intend to place before the court. View the Supreme Court Practice Directions for guidelines.
• File the written submissions via eLitigation and prepare 4 sets of hard copies and visit the Supreme Court Service Hub to submit these.

Submit the bundle of authorities to the Supreme Court Service Hub

• Authorities include the relevant cases, statutes, subsidiary legislation and other materials that support your arguments. View the Supreme Court Practice Directions for guidelines.
• Compile the bundle of authorities in a CD, prepare 4 sets of hard copies and visit the Supreme Court Service Hub to submit these.

• Part 2 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions on the use of technology facilities in the Supreme Court.
• Part 4 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions on electronic filing and service of documents for the Supreme Court.
• Part 22 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions on matters specific to Criminal Proceedings.