RECOURSE. – The term is used in various legal systems with different meanings, which, however, can be summarized in one: namely, a means of substantive legal challenge. Indeed, recourse differs profoundly from appeal, which is a means of procedural legal challenge and presupposes an appealable judgment. Recourse, as a means of substantive legal challenge, normally does not have a suspensive effect, whereas it generally does have a devolutive effect.
RECOURSE IN PROCEDURAL LAW. – Against judgments that do not admit appeal, a party may have recourse to the supreme tribunal for any legal defects contained in the judgment. Indeed, in almost all civil procedural systems (e.g., Vatican, Italian, French), only one review of the merits is permitted, and after a second-instance judgment, res judicata is established. The supreme tribunal in the aforementioned legal systems has the task of verifying that the norms of both substantive and procedural law were observed in the proceedings on the merits. Given the regulatory function of this supreme tribunal, it is evident that this is not an appeal, since it lacks the power to examine the case on the merits, but rather recourse, in order to obtain a ruling on any errors contained in the judgment of the court of first instance.
Recourse is also made to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and no appeal is made; it is true that this tribunal also has the power to decide on the merits in certain cases, such as in the case of can. 1693 § 1 n. 1 CIC, but generally the Apostolic Signatura is a tribunal of law rather than of merits. Before the entry into force of the CIC, it was possible to appeal not only against the judgments of judges but also against the decrees of judges or Ordinaries that could in some way burden a party, and this appeal was called extrajudicial. The CIC, however, uses the word "appeal" only in the case of a challenge to a judgment, while it calls recourse any challenge to decrees. There are four cases in which recourse has a suspensive effect and thus shares elements in common with appeal. Of these four cases, one pertains to procedural law (can. 1709; recourse against the rejection of a libellus).
II. RECOURSE IN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW. – Although in the Church there is no so-called separation of powers, nonetheless in canon law there is both jurisdictional authority—i.e., that of the tribunals and the Ordinary—and administrative authority—i.e., that of the Sacred Congregations and the Ordinary. In administrative law, no appeal is permitted outside of recourse. Against a decision of the Ordinary, whether after a regular administrative process or outside of it, recourse must be made to the competent Sacred Congregation. Indeed, the CIC at can. 1601 provides that: against the decrees of Ordinaries there is no appeal or recourse to the Sacred Roman Rota, but that the Sacred Congregations alone are competent to hear recourse against such decrees. Recourse, therefore, presupposes an administrative decision of the Ordinary and is directed against it; however, except in the cases mentioned in cann. 647, 1465, 2153, 2243, and 2287, recourse does not have the effect of suspending the decision of the bishop. In other cases, recourse has only a devolutive effect. Regarding the administrative processes of which the CIC speaks in Book IV, Part 3, it should be noted that against the definitive decree there is only the remedy of recourse to the Apostolic See, and that, pending recourse, the Ordinary cannot validly confer a parish or benefice in a stable manner to another if the cleric has been deprived of it (can. 2146 §§ 1 and 3). From this canon it follows that in cases of administrative processes, recourse, although lacking a suspensive effect, nonetheless prevents the Ordinary from allowing the position occupied by the removed petitioner to be permanently filled by another.