Court of Appeal concludes final session for the year |21 December 2020
The Court of Appeal on Friday concluded its final session for the year by delivering judgments in both civil and criminal matters before the court.
Of the 54 civil appeal cases registered this year, court has disposed of 53, although there remains 141 pending civil appeals.
A total of 26 criminal appeals were heard and decided this year, despite only 22 being registered this year. Twenty-five criminal appeals are pending.
This year also saw five registered Constitutional appeals, four of which have been disposed of, while three are pending.
Of the 15 plus appeals before court, the majority were dismissed, with orders for costs in some civil matters.
As for criminal appeals, three appellants were granted back their freedom and acquitted for drug-related offences.
Court also imposed a harsher sentence of 20 years on appellant Emmanuel Saffrance, who was appealing against the 15-year sentence imposed by the Supreme Court for the killing of fellow Montagne Posée Prison inmate Keven Bristol in 2018.
The following are some of the other decisions handed down by court on Friday.
Cable & Wireless Seychelles Limited v Ministry of Broadcasting & Telecommunication and Anor
Cable & Wireless Seychelles Limited lost its appeal to have a judgment of the Supreme Court set aside, quashing an order issued by the ministry to re-establish and restore interconnection to all licensed operators, which is in fact a requirement by law, court pointed out.
The telecommunications company was allegedly at the centre of a complaint lodged by Intelvision to the Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), who stated that it had been experiencing issues with incoming international calls being blocked on the appellant’s network. And that despite numerous attempts to rectify the issue with the appellant, minimal progress had been made. After almost a year and some attempts by DICT to re-establish the service to its proper working condition to no avail, the Ministerial Order was imposed.
The appeal before court followed the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to dismiss Cable’s petition to quash the ministry’s order. The appeal was dismissed with costs.
David Agnes V R
Court ruled to dismiss the appeal of David Agnes against the Supreme Court decision convicting him of murder and sentencing him to life imprisonment based on a seven to two jury verdict, on July 12, 2019.
Agnes’ appeal was based on seven grounds, mainly relating to the manner in which the trial judge conducted the trial or to specific evidence given by a witness to the act, who happens to be a minor, and one ground against sentence. However, court maintained that the prosecution succeeded to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and the Supreme Court correctly returned a verdict of guilty as charged, also maintaining the sentence.
MM V R
The appellant in this matter sought to succeed in his appeal against the Supreme Court conviction and 14-year sentence for sexual assault on a minor, below the age of twelve.
As the only direct evidence in the matter is the account of the alleged victim and those who she told, the appellant relied on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to prove all the elements of the offence and that the sentence is manifestly harsh and excessive.
All grounds of appeal were dismissed, with court ruling to uphold both conviction and sentence.
Michel Ah-Time V R
Like many other appellants on Friday, Ah-Time was faced with the disappointment of having his appeal against the conviction for unlawful possession of marine shells and the forfeiture order made in relation to the seized coco de mer nuts and kernels dismissed.
Ah-Time was found to be in possession of large quantities, according to the court report, in excess of 1000kg of marine shells and some 100 coco de mer nuts in September 2011. Court maintained both the conviction and seizure order.