Constitutional court ruling sets precedent for criminal cases |06 October 2021

The Constitutional court yesterday delivered a ruling which means that prosecution is not obliged to hand over to the judge the trial bundles comprising background information and evidence, in criminal cases.

The ruling which sets a precedent for all criminal cases going forward comes after a petition was filed by four persons charged by the Supreme Court for drug trafficking, in which they claim that the disclosure of trial bundles to the trial judge at the commencement of criminal cases infringes on the right to fair trial guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution.

As per lawyer Alexia Amesbury, the ruling is an important one for criminal matters, eliminating the possibility for trial judges to be influenced in making determinations.

“The ruling of the Constitutional court is important because before the ruling, the prosecution handed over all documents to the judge, a copy is served to the defence and one to the judge. The lawyer representing the defence has always objected and stated that the judge should not know what is in the dockets. For instance, what if the accused gave a confession and then during trial the confession is rejected and therefore does not form part of the trial, but the judge has already seen the confession. We are not saying that this will influence them, but there is the possibility that maybe after seeing the confession, it may influence their determination in the case, which is why we think this ruling is really important for criminal cases,” said lawyer Amesbury.

“This is important for us because in jurisdictions whereby there are juries, jurors do not have access to the docket. So when they give their guilty or not guilty verdict, it is based on evidence given before the court. In Seychelles we have jury trials only for murder, so we, as defence counsel really felt that this was not right because the judge had access to everything, even before the person appears in court, before the case is heard and all, so, we always said that this was not right,” Mrs Amesbury explained.

This will serve to give accused persons the peace of mind that their case will be heard by a court that is fair, independent and impartial.

With the ruling of the Constitutional court, the four accused’s drug trafficking case can move forward.

Laura Pillay