Director of Public Prosecutions v Arab

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to the New South Wales Court of Appeal against orders made by the District Court in relation to an appeal by Mr. Mohammad Hossein Arab. Mr. Arab had pleaded guilty in the Local Court and subsequently applied to withdraw his plea, which was refused, leading to a conviction. He then appealed to the District Court.

The primary legal issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the District Court had jurisdiction to hear Mr. Arab's appeal under section 11A of the *Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001* (NSW) and whether it had jurisdiction to deem the appeal as one against the Local Court's refusal of an annulment application under section 4 of the same Act. The Crown argued that the District Court had made jurisdictional errors in both respects.

The Court of Appeal reasoned that the District Court had erred in treating Mr. Arab's appeal as one under section 11A of the *Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001*, which deals with appeals against convictions where no appeal has been made to the District Court within the prescribed time. Furthermore, the Court found that the District Court had also erred in deeming the appeal to be against the Local Court's refusal of an annulment application under section 4. The Court interpreted the phrase "not in appearance" in section 4 to mean "does not appear," indicating that an application for annulment under that section was not available in the circumstances.

Consequently, the Court of Appeal ordered that the District Court's previous orders annulling the convictions and sentences be quashed. It declared that the District Court had fallen into jurisdictional error and remitted the matter back to the District Court to be determined according to law, with no order as to costs.