Apostolic Signatura

(Latin: signatura apostolica)
This is the Vatican’s supreme court. The Apostolic Signatura is the court of last instance, (the Rota Romana  being the third). Below them come the bishops’ tribunals which are “almost exclusively” devoted to marriage annulment. This is why the higher courts have to deal with “a significant number” of objections to the flood of annulments sought through the lower ones. The justices of these ecclesiastical courts still wear the mediaeval legal hat which identifies John of Nepomuk, patron saint of lawyers. The judges in the higher courts, the Apostolic Signatura and the Rota Romana, are clothed in red.

A Catholic traditionalist priest has given a learned explanation of annulment procedure, made lively by his strong disapproval of what he sees as modern Church laxity. However, others have different objections to these ecclesiastical courts.

In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights found that the procedures of the Rota Romana, the ecclesiastical appeals court responsible for marriage-annulment applications, failed to reach the standards required for a fair trial under article 6(1) of the European Convention and that, therefore, its judgments could not properly be recognized and enforced under Italian law. ECHR noted that, in Rota proceedings, witness statements were not provided to parties and that thus there was no opportunity for the parties to comment on them. Parties were not advised that they could appoint lawyers to appear for them, nor advised of the terms of the legal submissions made by the canon lawyer appointed by the court to argue against annulment. Finally, the parties were refused sight of a full copy of the Rota’s judgment, in which the ecclesiastical court set out its reasoning. Given these circumstances, the Strasbourg court took the view that justice was not done in annulment proceedings before church courts. (Pellegrini v. Italy (2002) 35 EHRR 2)

Technically, however, the European Court was obliged to fault Italy for enforcing the judgement of the Vatican court. This is because the Vatican couldn't be censured for violating the European Convention on Human Rights, since it hadn't signed it.

E.g. The Austrian Concordat (1933 Art. 7.4) recognises judgements of this court, rather than Austrian civil courts, as decisive for marriages celebrated in a Catholic church, regardless of the opinions of the participants.