Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
| Published date | 01 January 1957 |
| Date | 01 January 1957 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835702100106 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Judicial Committee of the
Privy
Council
NO 'MISCARRIAGE OF
JUSTICE'
IN
CYPRUS APPEAL
Karaolides v. The Queen
INdismissing this appeal by special leave from a
judgment
of
the
Supreme
Court
of Cyprus, which
had
dismissed the
appellant's appeal from a
judgment
of Assize
Court
of Nicosia
(sitting without ajury) whereby he was convicted of
the
murder
by shooting of a police constable
and
sentenced to
death, the Judicial Committee
(Lord
Goddard, L.C.J.,
Lords
Oaksey, Tucker, Keith of Avonholm
and
Somervell of
Harrow) re-affirmed
the
nature of the jurisdiction which
the
Board exercised in criminal cases.
This
jurisdiction, said
Lord
Oaksey in giving the advice of the Board, had long been
settled.
It
was a principle of the proceedings of the Board
that
it was for
the
appellant in a criminal appeal to satisfy
the
Board
that
a real miscarriage of justice had occurred; the
mere admission of incompetent evidence, not essential to
the
result, was not a ground for allowing an appeal against convic-
tion.
The
dominant question was
the
broad one whether
substantial justice had been done, whether looking at the
proceedings as a whole,
and
taking into account what had
properly been proved, the conclusion come to had been a
just
one.
The
evidence of
the
eye-witnesses called at the trial was
conflicting.
There
were in all eight eye-witnesses or alleged
eye-witnesses, four called by
the
prosecution
and
four by
the
defence. At the trial a
number
of documents were given in
evidence with a view to connecting the appellant with
the
terrorist activities of a certain
part
of the population of Cyprus.
The
admission of
that
evidence was the principal ground of
the
appeal.
The
Judicial Committee agreed with the
sub-
mission of
the
appellant's counsel
that
those documents with
one exception were inadmissible,
not
merely some of them, as
the
Supreme
Court
of Cyprus had held. But the appellant
had still to satisfy the Board
that
their admission
turned
the
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