Foreign Law and High Courts in Private International Law

Abstract

Trial court judgments, in cases to which foreign law is applicable, are normally subject to review by superior instances in the same way as other first instance judgments. When trial court findings are challenged from the point of view of foreign law, a basic distinction is usually made between a failure to apply the law correctly designated by rules of conflicts
of law, on the one hand, and materially incorrect application of the applicable foreign law, on the other hand. The possibilities to form an appeal against a decision having applied foreign law are limited. Parties can appeal a decision applying foreign law based on an erroneous application of the foreign law. That appeal, however, must be based solely on the material produced before the trial court. Likely, the Supreme Court will be reluctant to control decisions based on an incorrect application of foreign law and will exercise its power only in circumstances where such a mistake is a manifest error or when judges appear to have relied on a personal evaluation and construction of the documents and legal rules. Possible grounds of appeal in cases of erroneous application of foreign law are not listed in the law, however the law is not limited and can be established on different considerably broad considerations such as incorrect application or incorrect interpretation, non-application of the foreign law and etc.Judges and lawyers may not be acknowledged with the essence of resolution of some private international law cases.And for this reason the study will be deemed to be valuable and will assist practicing lawyers to understand and apply these issues in a better manner.