Federal Court of Appeal

The Federal Court of Appeal (in French the Cour d'appel federale) is the Canadian appellate court that hears cases concerning federal matters. It takes appeals from the Federal Court, the federal trial court, and from the Tax Court of Canada, and it has original jurisdiction over judicial review of decisions of major federal boards, commissions and agencies, among them the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the Canadian Transportation Agency and the Competition Tribunal. Appeals from it lie to the Supreme Court of Canada. Parliament created the court under section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which lets it establish additional courts, so its jurisdiction is limited to what federal statutes give it, unlike the inherent jurisdiction of provincial superior courts. It began as the Appeal Division of the Federal Court of Canada, set up in 1971, and became a separate court in 2003 when the Courts Administration Service Act split that court in two. It has a chief justice and fourteen full-time judges, at least five of them from Quebec, is based in Ottawa and sits in panels of at least three across the country.