| TRINIDAD
AND TOBAGO — Human rights and fundamental freedoms — Due process and
protection of the law — Prosecutor's appeal against acquittal — Whether
infringing defendant's constitutional rights to due process and protection of
the law — Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Act, Sch, ss
4(a)(b) — Supreme Court of Judicature Act, s 65E (as inserted by Administration
of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1996, s 4)
State
of Trinidad and Tobago v Boyce [2006] UKPC 1
PC: Lord Bingham of Cornhill,
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hutton, Lord Scott of Foscote and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood:
11 January 2006
A
statutory provision enabling the prosecution to appeal against the acquittal of
a defendant on the direction of the trial judge did not infringe the defendant's
constitutional rights to "due process" and the "protection of the
law", since what those rights protected were the fundamental principles necessary
for a fair system of justice, not all the mandatory requirements of criminal procedure
in existence under common law at the time when the Constitution came into force.
The
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council so held when dismissing, for other reasons,
the State's appeal against the dismissal by the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and
Tobago on 30 November 2001 of its appeal against the acquittal of the defendant,
Brad Boyce, on a charge of manslaughter following a direction by the trial judge,
Volney J, on 27 July 1998. The judge directed the jury to acquit on the grounds
of insufficiency of evidence.
The State's appeal was brought under s 65E(a)
of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, which introduced a right of appeal by
the prosecution "against a judgment or verdict of acquittal of a trial court
in proceedings by indictment when the judgment or verdict is the result of a decision
by the trial judge to uphold a no case submission or withdraw the case from the
jury on any ground of appeal that the decision of the trial judge is erroneous
in point of law."
LORD HOFFMANN, delivering the judgment of their
Lordships, said the Court of Appeal had upheld the defendant's submission that
s 65E was unconstitutional because, under the common law as it existed at the
time of the enactment of the Constitution, a second trial of an accused who had
been acquitted by a jury would have infringed rights to due process and to the
protection of the law which were entrenched by s 4 of the Constitution. That was
wrong. Although in one sense the concept of due process incorporated observance
of all the mandatory requirements of criminal procedure in force at a particular
time, it also had a narrower constitutional meaning, namely those fundamental
principles which were necessary for a fair system of justice: see Thomas v Baptiste
[2000] 2 AC 1, 22–24. The old common law rule which prevented the prosecution
from appealing against an acquittal did not form part of the due process in its
narrower sense as a fundamental right or freedom. The broad principle that a person
who had been finally convicted or acquitted in proceedings which had run their
course should not be liable to be tried again for the same offence was a fundamental
principle of fairness, but it was not entirely without exceptions and it was not
infringed by the prosecution having the right of appeal against an acquittal.
There was nothing particularly unfair or unjust about a statutory rule which enabled
an appellate court to correct an error of law by which an accused person had been
wrongly discharged or acquitted and order that the question of his guilt or innocence
be properly determined according to law. Another of the defendant's objections
to the application of s 65E was that the judge's decision to exclude evidence
involved a mixed question of law and fact and was not therefore "erroneous
in point of law": see Smith v The Queen [2000] 1 WLR 1644. But the Bermuda
statute in Smith's case used the terms "question of law alone" and "question
of mixed law and fact" in such a way as to suggest they had different meanings.
The words "erroneous in point of law" as used in the Trinidad statute
in connection with proceedings before a jury referred to the distinction between
questions of law which were for the judge and questions of fact which were matters
for the jury. It followed that any ruling which might properly be made by the
judge was a ruling on a point of law and could be challenged as erroneous by appeal
under s 65E. However, the Court of Appeal, if minded to allow the State's appeal,
would still have to consider whether it would be fair to order a new trial and
in the present case, following a lapse of time of nine years, it would not be.
The appeal would therefore be dismissed. |
