Youth Court Decisions How to Use Full list of key titles CYPFA section Date

R v Police (1997) 14 CRNZ 590 (HC)

Case summary provided by BROOKERS

Name: R v Police
Reported: (1997) 14 CRNZ 590
File number: T14/90
Date: 11 May 1990
Court: High Court
Location: Rotorua
Judge: Fisher J
Charge: Rape
CYPFA: s276
Key Title: Purely Indictable Procedure

BROOKERS Summary:

Children, young persons, and their families - Judicial review - Guilty plea to offence - Whether sentencing process to be conducted in Youth Court or High Court - Common law principles and natural justice - Informant not prevented from making submission on choice of jurisdiction in the interest of the public - Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, s 276.

The 16-year-old applicant pleaded guilty to a charge of rape. On exercising its jurisdiction under s 276 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, the Youth Court held that the police, as informant, were entitled to be heard on the question of whether the applicant should be sentenced in the Youth Court or the High Court. The Youth Court Judge went on to decline jurisdiction and committed the applicant to the High Court for sentence. The applicant sought a judicial review of the Youth Court's decision to permit the police to make submissions on that subject.

Held, dismissing the application:

The starting point is the general principle that every Court has as inherent power to control its own procedures in the absence of any statutory or common law directive to the contrary. A second important common law principle is that a person or body determining a justiciable controversy between parties must give each party a fair opportunity to put his view. In a criminal prosecution, the prosecutor normally represents the community. The interests of the community are normally a legitimate consideration in the sentencing process. For that reason, one might expect that the community, through the prosecutor, would have a right to be heard on a a subject in which it is vitally interested. These natural justice principles however, must always remain subject to contrary provision by statute. In this case there is nothing is either the express procedural provisions or the underlying objects of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 to rebut the effect of the fundamental common law principles. As one of the principal parties to the proceedings, the informant has a right to be heard to be heard on all matters relating to sentencing in the Youth Court including the exercise of the power to decline jurisdiction under s 276 of the Act.

Cases referred to

Clifford v CIR [1966] NZLR 201 (CA)
Furnell v Whangarei High Schools Board [1973] 2 NZLR 705 (PC)
Police v Mervyn 7/12/89, Judge Callander, DC Tauranga CR9270009012
R v M and C (1986) 1 CRNZ 694 (CA)
R v Tait and Bartley (1979) 24 ALR 473[(1990) 6 FRNZ 538, 539]

Application

This was an application under the Judicature Amendment Act 1972 seeking to review the decision of a Youth Court Judge.

The facts appear from the judgment.