does not actually sound like a change to the appeal process itself.
There has definitely been a change to the appeals process there is no point standing there saying there hasn’t.
Slim explained it well when he said perhaps this is the most significant change, I suggest you read his post again
The change to the appeal procedure is pretty significant. In fact maybe it’s the most significant change when you think about it. Because in the past an appeal committee was only allowed to overturn the decision if they were convinced that the original committee had been wrong about the person not being repentant at the original judicial committee. In other words it was not good enough if the person had become repentant meantime, the only function of the appeal committee was to assess whether the original judgement had been correct on the day, not to make a new judgement in light of any new expressions of repentance. In practice it has been reported that appeals very rarely overturned the original decision, and only in cases that were so clearly wrong or, more likely, damaging to the organisation in some way if processed that the circuit overseer or branch got involved to reverse the decision.
The new procedure sends out the clear message that the GB wants elders to avoid disfellowshipping people at all costs. Because now the appeal committee is allowed to reassess the repentance of the person at the second committee and, reading between the lines, encouraged to actively look for signs of repentance in order to avoid disfellowshipping, which is as different to the old appeal procedure as you could imagine.