IN COURT THIS WEEK
MAN SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS IMPRISONMENT
The Supreme Court presided over by Justice Perera has sentenced a 49 year old man to undergo 10 years imprisonment for doing an act intended to cause grievous harm. The man who was originally charged with 2 counts for attempted murder and causing grievous harm respectively was acquitted of Count 1 but convicted on Count 2.
The penalty prescribed by law for such offences is a possible sentence of life imprisonment. The man’s attorney submitted in mitigation that the man has been living with his elder sister for whom he has to care. The lawyer also submitted that the man had been on remand since 2004 waiting for his trial and pleaded for leniency.
However, Justice Perera remarked that the convict had a “dismal” criminal record ranging from 1973 for a multitude of offences. He was last released from prison on 28th November 1997. Despite that, the Court remarked that during the past 5 years there has been no recorded conviction.
The Court referred to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and stated that the Act was enacted to “…persuade offenders to break away from crime, by providing that an offender who has been convicted of a crime and been sentenced to a certain period of imprisonment could have that sentence “wiped clean” after a period of time”. The Court said that it was doubtful whether the Convict had rehabilitated himself since 1997.
However, the Court was of the view that in fairness to the Convict it would consider his previous convictions as spent convictions and will not take them into consideration for the purposes of present sentencing. The Court considered the injuries suffered by the victim of the crime seriously stating that the victim had suffered a penetrative wound of about 10cm, causing active bleeding in the thorax, and air escaping from that wound. That condition was stabilized only by a thoracotomy.
The Court referred to precedents and said that in the case of Gaetan Rene and Others v R (Crim. Side No.28 of 1998) on a charge under Section 219(a) of the Penal Code, carrying a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment the Court imposed a sentence of 7 years imprisonment on each Convict. In that case the injury caused to the victim was a “circumferal laceration of the skin of the shaft of the penis, causing a retraction of the distal and proximal parts, producing an exposed wide band of mucosa circumferentially”.
In another case Roger Aglae v R (Crim. Appeal No. 15 of 1997) the victim received a stab injury which penetrated the lungs. However, as the accused pleaded guilty, showed remorse and saved the precious time of the Court, he was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment, out of a possible sentence of 7 years under a charge of Unlawful Wounding for which he was charged. It is clear from these two illustrated cases that the more severe the injuries suffered by the victim the harsher the punishment will be.
The criticisms in these types of cases have been the amount of time it takes for the accused to be tried. The Constitution provides that a person who is charged with an offence shall be tried within a reasonable time. The emphasis here is “reasonable time”. It is therefore imperative that people who are especially on remand are tried within a reasonable time. The reason for the delay is not clear but in another case a man, Cliff Emmanuel, is on remand waiting for judgment after more than 3 years. The Chief Justice has also taken up this issue and expressed his concern during his inaugural speech for the opening of the Supreme Court on 15th September 2006.
It remains to be seen how the Court will tackle this long overdue problem.