DENNIS ROMAIN RENOUF Vs. ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR JERSEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by special leave from a judgment and conviction of the Royal Court of the Island of Jersey dated 8 November 1934. The trial of the appellant was by way of an indictment presented by and on behalf of the respondent, the Attorney-General for Jersey, and took place on 8 November 1934, before the Full Court consisting of the Bailiff and eight Jurats with a Jury of twenty-four. The indictment charged the appellant with having, on 19th August 1934, driven his motor car in the town of St. Helier at a dangerous speed and to the danger of the public and with having by his criminal imprudence, carelessness, or negligence (par suite de son imprudence, son imperitie ou sa negligence criminelles) collided with Frederick William Whiting and having inflicted injuries upon him which caused his death. The appellant pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the Jury and was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour, and his driving licence was withdrawn. Special leave to appeal was given by Order in Council dated 20 December 1934, but without prejudice to the right of the respondent to argue that the appeal is incompetent. The contention of the respondent is that the decision of the Royal Court of Jersey in a criminal case is final and is not open to question or appeal even with special leave of His Majesty in Council.

(2.) There are thus two entirely distinct questions for consideration: first, whether special leave to appeal from the verdict and sentence could properly be given in this or any other criminal case from Jersey, and, secondly, whether if the answer is in the affirmative, the present appeal from verdict and sentence is within the class of exceptional circumstances in which their Lordships could advise His Majesty to intervene. It seems to their Lordships beyond doubt that there is no right of appeal from the decision of the Royal Court in a criminal case to His Majesty in Council, using the term "right of appeal" in its proper sense. It will be remembered that (subject to certain limitations or exceptions not material to the present case) there was no right of appeal in a criminal matter either in this country or in any of the dominions of the Crown until a recent date (in this country the date of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907). The verdict of the Jury was for centuries considered to be conclusive. It may be added that the Island of Jersey is not a colony or to use the old phrase "a plantation." It is part or parcel of the ancient Duchy of Normandy which came into the possession of William Duke of Normandy in A. D. 933 and remained attached to the English Crown when Philip II of France conquered the rest of Normandy from King John. It has its own constitution and is governed by its own laws; and, apart from enactment, it would be strange to find that there was a right of appeal properly so called in criminal matters to the King in Council. In fact as will be seen there is no trace in any legislation or in any authoritative work of any such right of appeal. The evidence is uniformly against the existence of such a right.

(3.) The question of the power of the King to admit an appeal in such a case as an act of grace gives rise to very different considerations. The discretion of the King in Council to grant special leave to appeal has been often described, not inconveniently, as the prerogative right; and there is a whole body of authority tending to show that this prerogative right can only be taken away by the express words or the necessary intendment of a statute of other equivalent Act of state. A short account of the way in which the different methods of reaching the Sovereign as the fountain of justice, namely by appeal as of right and by appeal after special leave obtained, have grown up, will be found in the cases of Nadan V/s. The King, (1926) AC 482 at p. 491, and British Coal Corporation V/s. The King,(1935) AC 500 at p. 511. The judgment of the Board delivered by Viscount Cave L. G. in the former of these cases contains a reference to most of the previous decisions of the Board in which the question of the prerogative right of the Crown to grant special leave has been considered and it is unnecessary to repeat his observations here. In dealing with the case of a Court of great antiquity such as the Royal Court of Jersey, the question must be whether in any of the Constitutions, Charters, Orders in Council, or other Acts of state there is any ground for holding that the prerogative right has been taken away, bearing in mind that precise words, or the necessary effect of them, alone can result in such a conclusion.