I welcome you to the proceedings, Mr. Butterfill. I hope that we can be brief.
Appeals affect three sets of rights.
First, they affect the rights of the party who wishes to appeal. Secondly, they affect the rights of the other party or parties to the litigation who have received judgment and wish to resist the appeal. Finally, they affect the interests of other court users and the public interest in the finality of litigation. An effective appeals system needs to balance those three sets of rights by ensuring that appeals are dealt with in ways that are proportionate to the grounds of complaint and the subject matter of the dispute. So far as is practical, the system should also ensure that uncertainty and delay are reduced to a minimum.