Pappas v Mirenda

The case of Pappas v Mirenda involved an appeal from the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory. The appellant, John Pappas, appealed against his conviction for speeding contrary to s 20 of the Road Transport (Road Rules) Regulation 2017 (ACT). The appellant was fined $400 for driving at 83 km/h in a 70 km/h zone on 1 February 2020 at 9:50am on Pialligo Avenue in Majura. The appeal was dismissed by Mossop J.

The appellant argued that the evidence was incapable of establishing the offence as alleged in the charge, as the offence was said to have occurred at 9:50am but the evidence suggested it occurred at 9:50:11am. The appellant contended that the time of the offence was an element of the offence and that the particularisation of the time in the charge was insufficient. The appellant also argued that the magistrate misdirected herself in concluding that an offence alleged to have been committed at 9:50am could be established by evidence of offending conducted at any time between 9:50am and 9:51am. The appellant further argued that the magistrate failed to properly apply s 25 of the Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999 (ACT) which relates to evidentiary certificates. Finally, the appellant argued that the magistrate failed to give any weight to the evidence placed before her by consent.

The court found that the appellant's arguments were based on two false premises. First, the appellant assumed that the charge was particularised as 9:50:00am whereas in fact it was simply 9:50am. The court found that as a matter of ordinary language, the reference to 9:50am was sufficient to encompass the whole of that minute. Second, the appellant submitted that the terms of the Safety and Traffic Management Act relating to traffic offence detection devices meant that the date, time and place of the offence became an element of the offence or was required to be stated, to the second, in the charge. The court found that this submission was without substance, as the offence provision is s 20 of the Road Rules Regulation which is not concerned with the precise time of the offence. The provisions relating to camera detection devices and evidentiary certificates are simply evidentiary provisions facilitating the proof of contraventions of, inter alia, s 20 of that regulation. The court found that these grounds of appeal were not made out.

The court also found that the appellant's argument that the magistrate failed to give any weight to the evidence placed before her by consent was not made out, as the evidence was not relevant to the issue of whether the offence occurred at 9:50am or 9:50:11am.

The final orders of the court were that the appeal was dismissed.