As I understand it: In Germany, a court of appeal at that level will generally only allow a further appeal if general questions of law are concerned, according to its assessment. This is likely in order to protect the higher instances from being flooded with appeals on non-fundamental issues. As mentioned by TFA, there is still a procedure to object to such a decision, but it comes with higher hurdles for providing justification for objecting.
The procedure is called Nichtzulassungsbeschwerde in Germany, and is generally possible if the claim exceeds 20,000 EUR according to ยง 544 ZPO [1]. At the BGH (highest civil court), the success rate is surprisingly high, less than 5% rejections in 2022 [2]. After a successful Nichtzulassungsbeschwerde you still have to win the case, and only legal arguments will be considered by the court, i.e. you cannot enter facts not already discussed in the lower instance, introduce new witnesses etc.
I think people are surprised by the wording of it, but the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) is de-facto the same. The facts are taken as ruled in the lower courts. So unless there is a question regarding how the facts and the law interact, the SCOTUS don't really have jurisdiction in the case.
> The Supreme Court relies on the record assembled by lower courts for the facts of a case and deals solely with the question of how the law applies to the facts presented.
And later:
> The court grants a petition for cert only for "compelling reasons", spelled out in the court's Rule 10. Such reasons include:
> * Resolving a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the federal Constitution
> * Correcting an egregious departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings
> * Resolving an important question of federal law, or to expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the court.
> After a successful Nichtzulassungsbeschwerde you still have to win the case, and only legal arguments will be considered by the court, i.e. you cannot enter facts not already discussed in the lower instance, introduce new witnesses etc.
Interesting.
Not only can anyone appeal all the way to the supreme court in the USA (they still have to decide to take it up however) but people can also file "cert" to have the case be skipped all the way to the supreme court to decide the "questions presented" or the supreme court can even invoke "original jurisdiction" and have the case be heard directly from the beginning (this one is a nuclear option tho so has limitations).
Of course, all the pros/cons apply with such a system.
Off to nolife wikipedia on how the european court systems work including what courts are higher than each countries courts etc.
