In a judgment delivered on 2 December 2025, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the JCPC) considered the test to be applied by the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands (CICA) when dealing with an appeal “as of right”.
In Hawkins v Abarnamel Limited [2025] UKPC 58, the JCPC considered an important procedural issue. CICA refused Mr Hawkins permission to appeal to the JCPC despite him having an “appeal as of right”. Although this procedural issue did not in the end directly affect the parties, because Mr Hawkins was given special leave to appeal by the JCPC in any event, it raised an important question of general public importance. That question was as follows: did CICA apply the correct legal test in deciding that permission to appeal should be refused even though there was an appeal as of right?
By section 3(1) of the Cayman Islands (Appeals to Privy Council) Order 1984 (the 1984 Order):
“… an appeal shall lie as of right from decisions of the Court [ie the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal] to [His] Majesty in Council in the following cases–
(a) final decisions in any civil proceedings, where the matter in dispute on the appeal to [His] Majesty in Council is of the value of£300 sterling or upwards or where the appeal involves directly or indirectly a claim to or question respecting property or a right of the value of £300sterling or upwards…”
It was not in dispute that in this case Mr Hawkins had an appeal “as of right” to the JCPC under section 3(1)(a) of the 1984 Order. It was also not in dispute that CICA has a role to play in respect of permission to appeal because, even though an appeal is available as of right, that local Court needs to verify that there is such a right and to deal with certain procedural matters (eg conditions may be imposed as regards costs and the preparation of the record of proceedings).
Furthermore, in respect of several other jurisdictions, it has previously been accepted by the JCPC that the local Court may properly refuse permission, even though there is an appeal as of right, if there is nota genuinely disputable issue.
Given that the threshold should be a very low one, the JCPC considered that the best approach, so as to achieve greater simplicity and certainty, was that the relevant test to be applied, whether by CICA or the Board, was as follows. Where there is an appeal as of right, permission to appeal will be refused where the appeal raises no genuinely disputable issue or, which appears to be synonymous, the appeal is devoid of merit, or the appeal is otherwise an abuse of process.
The justification for not allowing such an appeal to be brought is that it would amount to an abuse of process so that there is no question of such a refusal illegitimately undermining what is often a fundamental or constitutional right.
Although the JCPC confirmed that it was not being asked to consider what the correct approach of the JCPC should be where there is an appeal as of right and the local court has given (rather than refused)permission to appeal, it follows from the reasoning above that the JCPC has the power to strike out an appeal which, in the JCPC’s view, raises no genuinely disputable issue or is devoid of merit or is otherwise an abuse of process.
In the Isle of Man, there is no “appeal as of right” to the JCPC. A party must seek permission to appeal in each case based on the applicable legal principles. If an application for permission to appeal is refused by the Isle of Man’s Court of Appeal (the Staff of Government Division), that is the end of the appeal process: see our previous article on this issue here.
2 December 2025
