Report No. 58

Decisions

3.24. In referring to these decisions here, our object is to draw attention to the fact that not only the Supreme Court, but the High Courts that have had occasion to consider applications for the grant of certificate, have, broadly speaking, taken the view that the certificate is to be granted only where certain important questions are at issue. This unwritten limitation-we do not use the word "limitation" in any rigid sense-sometimes finds expression, while sometimes it is the implicit basis for the grant or refusal of a certificate. Proceedings for the grant or refusal of the certificate are not usually reported. But, on a perusal of those cases in which judicial pronouncements fell to be made, as also from oral discussions with the judiciary and the bar at various places, we have no doubt that such is the position.

3.25. The jurisdiction of the High Court to certify a case as a fit one for further appeal is, to a certain extent discretionary, and, like the jurisdiction of the Judges of the Divisional Court in England to give or to refuse leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal from their own decisions is, (to use the epithet employed1 by Lord Esher M.R. in relation to that jurisdiction), a "very dedicate one."

1. Gilchrist (Ex Parte); Armstrong (in re:), (1886) 17 QBD 521 (528).