MAURITIUS Law and Practice Contributed by: André Robert and Ammar Oozeer, BLC Robert & Associates
within 21 days of the judgment being appealed, and the applicant must give all other parties concerned notice of its intended application. When considering the leave application, the court has discretion as to whether to order a stay of execution of the judgment appealed. 10.4 Issues Considered by the Appeal Court at an Appeal The Appellate Court will not conduct a rehearing of the first instance case and hear witnesses anew. The Appellate Court will typically review the transcript of proceedings, the evidence adduced and consider written and oral submissions of counsel with the aim of deciding whether the lower court has committed errors of law. The Appellate Court will not typically overturn findings of fact unless they are perverse, in the sense that no reasonable judge or magistrate could have made such findings based on the evidence on record. New pleadings of fact cannot be taken on appeal, although the Appellate Court may in certain circum- stances allow new evidence to be adduced on appeal where such evidence could not have been available to a party in the lower court and the evidence is relevant to issues to be determined in the appeal. It is possible (subject to the discretion of the Appellate Court) to argue points of law which were not raised before the lower court. 10.5 Court-Imposed Conditions on Granting an Appeal Appeals before the Supreme Court in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction over lower courts or before the Court of Civil Appeal are subject to furnishing an amount of about MUR25,000 as security for costs. Appeals before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are subject to furnishing MUR150,000 as security for costs. 10.6 Powers of the Appellate Court After an Appeal Hearing An appellate court may: • dismiss the appeal if none of the grounds for appeal have any merit;
• quash the judgment of the lower court if one or more grounds of appeal are well taken, and itself draw any inferences of fact and give any judgment and make any order which ought to have been made, and make such further order as the case may require; • quash the judgment of the lower court if one or more grounds of appeal are well taken and, if it thinks fit, order that the judgment or order appealed be set aside, and that a new trial be started – a new trial may be ordered on any ques- tion without interfering with the finding or decision upon any other question; and • make such order as to the whole or any part of the costs of the appeal or the costs incurred in the lower court, as seems just. 11. Costs 11.1 Responsibility for Paying the Costs of Litigation During litigation, each party bears its ongoing costs. The general rule is that the losing party pays the win- ning party’s costs. In certain circumstances, the court may consider that the justice of the case requires that no order be made as to costs, for example, where the winning party has not conducted its case diligently or where both a claim and a counterclaim have succeed- ed, or where the parties reached an amicable settle- ment early in the proceedings – this is a matter left to the discretion of the judge. The court may also order: • a party to pay amounts determined by the judge for unreasonable conduct (eg, repeated applica- tions for extension of time); and/or • a legal representative to pay wasted costs orders in cases of improper, unreasonable or negligent acts or omissions. Costs would include the counsel and attorney costs of the winning party, court filing costs, costs relating to attendance of witnesses and costs of ancillary pre- trial applications. Most of these items are subject to very low prescribed amounts set out in the relevant court rules such as the Legal Fees and Costs Rules 2000 and the Supreme Court (Electronic Filing of Doc-
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