Last time, we determined that dissent was more common at the Supreme Court than at the Court of Appeal in every year between 1990 and 2004. The story is much the same for the years 2005 through 2020 – 2 years higher at the Court of Appeal (2011, 2018); 2 years tied (2008, 2019) ; 12 years higher at the Supreme Court. In 2011, the dissent rate at the Court of Appeal was 27.27% to 24.24% at the Supreme Court. In 2018, it was 12.12% at the Court of Appeal, 6.06% at the Supreme Court.
But for the most part, the rate at the Supreme Court is far higher – 21.57% at the Supreme Court, 9.8% at the Court of Appeal in 2005; 26.42% to 15.09% in 2006; 39.29% to 16.07% in 2007; 15.91% to 9.09% in 2009; 21.43% to 7.14% in 2010; 21.88% to 6.25% in 2013; 30.43% to 13.04% in 2014; 12.5% to 3.13% in 2015; 33.33% to 19.44% in 2016 and 13.79% to 6.9% in 2020.
Join us back here next time as we review the data for criminal cases from 2005 to 2020.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Pedro Szekely (no changes).