(Court of Appeal of Jamaica) The defendant had been convicted of murder and his applications for leave to appeal against conviction were refused. He applied to the Privy Council for special leave to appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal of Jamaica ‘on appeal from a court of Jamaica’.
Held: Special leave could be granted where the appellate courts of the local jurisdiction had refused to entertain any appeal against the decision or conviction in respect of which special leave to appeal was sought.
Lord Mance, gave the judgment of the Board, saying that the question was whether the Lane v Esdaile principle applied to the interpretation of the statutory provisions under consideration.
There was no trace of any such rule having been routinely applied to the statutory provisions which governed the grant of special leave to appeal. Secondly, the statutory provisions contemplated that special leave may be given in respect of a decision or order of a first instance court. Thirdly, the provisions ‘affirmed and regulated’ in statutory form the former royal prerogative which itself could not ‘be restricted or qualified save by express words or by necessary intendment’.
He concluded that the combination of these points was ‘decisive’: There is nothing clearly or necessarily to restrict the broad language reflecting the royal prerogative power to grant special leave now enacted in statutory form in section 3 of the 1844 Act and section 44 of the 1833 Act. The breadth of the prerogative power, now statutorily expressed, and the very varied contexts in which it applies militate against the recognition or introduction of any formal limitation upon section 3 and section 1 paralleling the rule in Lane v Esdaile. The Board concludes therefore that the rule in Lane v Esdaile is not applicable on any application made for special leave to the Privy Council itself.’
Judges:
Lord Rodger, Lady Hale, Lord Brown, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr
Citations:
[2010] UKPC 26, [2011] 2 AC 79, [2011] 2 WLR 983
Links:
Citing:
Cited – Lane v Esdaile HL 5-May-1891
The court considered the extent of the House’s jurisdiction as an appellate court. Section 3 of the 1876 Act provided that an appeal should lie to the House of Lords from ‘any order or judgment of . . Her Majesty’s Court of Appeal in England’. The . .
Cited by:
Cited – Sarfraz v Disclosure and Barring Service CA 22-May-2015
The claimant appealed against the refusal of the defendant to remove his name from the list of those barred from working with children. He had been a GP. Though not priosecuted for any criminal offence the Professional Conduct Committee had found . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Commonwealth, Criminal Practice
Updated: 25 August 2022; Ref: scu.425748