Court of Criminal Appeal
| Date | 01 July 1961 |
| Published date | 01 July 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836102500303 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of
Criminal
Appeal
CORRECTIVE
TRAINING
AFTER PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS
IN
SCOTLAND
R. v. Clarkson: R. v. Cavan
THE point in these two appeals (1961, 1 W.L.R. 347) was
anarrow one: is a sentence of preventive detention good if
in fact
the
conditions in s. 21 of
the
Criminal Justice Act,
1948,
turned
out
to have been fulfilled or must, at any rate,
primafacie evidence
that
they are satisfied be given at
the
trial
court before such asentence can be imposed?
The
Court
Lord
Parker, C.J., Salmon and Winn,
JJ.)
decided in favour of
the
stricter interpretation and allowed
the
appeals.
Two
convicted persons were sentenced to corrective
training and preventive detention respectively, on proof of
previous convictions in Scotland,
but
without evidence
that
those convictions were in respect of offences punishable on
indictment with imprisonment for two years or more.
It
is
provided by s. 23 (3) of
the
Act of 1948 (as added by
the
Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, 1949)
that
"For
the purposes
of subsections
(I)
and (2) of section 21 of this Act a certificate
purporting to be signed by or on behalf of
the
Lord
Advocate
that
an offence is punishable on indictment in Scotland with
imprisonment for a
term
of two years or more shall be evidence
of the matter so certified".
In
fact no such certificate was
put
in at
the
trial though it was available to the Court of Criminal
Appeal.
The
Court with considerable reluctance came to
the
conclusion
that
the
omission of
the
certificate or other proof at
the
trial stage was fatal.
The
sentences of preventive detention
and corrective training were set aside and other sentences sub-
stituted.
HOW
TO RELY ON DIPLOMATIC
IMMUNITY
R. v. Madan
It
is not for someone who is entitled to diplomatic
immunity to claim it in
the
courts. Proceedings brought
against somebody entitled to such immunity are, in fact,
189
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