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R v Rajamani

R v Rajamani

Case [2007] NZSC 68 23 August 2007

Jurisdiction

Appeal

Miscarriage of Justice

Misdirection on Law

Admissibility of Evidence

Expert Evidence

Legal Privilege

Criminal Law

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND
SC 8/2007
[2007] NZSC 68
LAXMAN RAJAMANI
v
THE QUEEN
Hearing:25 July 2007

Court:Elias CJ, Blanchard, Tipping, McGrath and Anderson JJ
Counsel:G J King, T J Darby and C Milnes for Appellant

J C Pike and K B F Hastie for Crown

Judgment:23 August 2007

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

A The appeal is allowed.

B The appellant’s conviction is set aside.
C A new trial is ordered.

REASONS
(Given by Tipping J)
Introduction
[1]       The appellant, Mr Rajamani, was found guilty of the murder of his wife after his partial defence of provocation was rejected by the jury. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed.[1] His further appeal to this Court is based on three grounds: (1) that the Judge’s directions on provocation were erroneous; (2) that the Judge misdirected the jury on the proper use they could make of certain evidence which had a potentially prejudicial hearsay dimension; and (3) that his trial miscarried because it was improperly completed with only ten jurors. As the third point is dispositive of the appeal we will address it first. We will discuss the other two points in that light.
Ten jurors
[1]R v Rajamani (Court of Appeal, CA140/06, 20 December 2006, Arnold, Randerson and Ronald Young JJ).
[2]       Section 374(4A) of the Crimes Act 1961 provides:
(4A)     The Court must not proceed with fewer than 11 jurors except in the following cases:
(a)       If the prosecutor and the accused consent:
(b)      If the Court considers that, because of exceptional circumstances relating to the trial (including, without limitation, the length or expected length of the trial), and having regard to the interests of justice, the Court should proceed with fewer than 11 jurors; and in that case—
(i)       The Court may proceed with 10 jurors whether or not the prosecutor and the accused consent:
(ii)      The Court may proceed with fewer than 10 jurors only if the prosecutor and the accused consent.

The effect is that, absent consent, the court must not proceed with fewer than 11 jurors unless there are exceptional circumstances and the court considers it is in the interests of justice to do so.
[3] A preliminary point arises concerning the scope of s 374(8), which provides that no court may review the exercise of any discretion under s 374. The question is whether a judge’s decision to proceed with ten jurors is wholly unreviewable or whether the Court of Appeal can consider whether the grounds for exercising the power to proceed with ten jurors were present. The Court of Appeal held first that whether the grounds for exercising the power were present could be the subject of review on appeal, but second that there was a “high threshold” for such a review. The Court stated that an appellant was required to establish that “no Judge could have rationally concluded exceptional circumstances existed”.[2] We consider the Court of…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading R v Rajamani

Details

AGLC: R v Rajamani [2007] NZSC 68
Case: [2007] NZSC 68
Decision Date: 23 August 2007

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the case of R v Rajamani saw the appellant, Mr Rajamani, appealing against his conviction for the murder of his wife, following the rejection of his partial defence of provocation by the jury. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed, leading him to further appeal to the Supreme Court on three grounds: the Judge's directions on provocation were erroneous, the Judge misdirected the jury on the use of certain evidence which had a potentially prejudicial hearsay dimension, and his trial miscarried because it was improperly completed with only ten jurors. The court found the third point to be dispositive of the appeal and would address the other two points in that light.

The court first considered the issue of whether the trial miscarried due to the improper completion of the trial with ten jurors. It was established that, absent consent, the court must not proceed with fewer than 11 jurors unless there are exceptional circumstances and the court considers it is in the interests of justice to do so. The trial Judge had ruled that exceptional circumstances existed, but the Supreme Court found that the trial Judge had erred in his conclusion. The completion of the trial with ten jurors deprived Mr Rajamani of his right to be tried by no less than 11 jurors, occasioning a miscarriage of justice. The court found the miscarriage to be substantial and the proviso to s 385 could not be invoked to save the conviction.

The court then considered the issues regarding the Judge's directions to the jury on the topic of provocation. The appellant's counsel raised concerns about the Judge's use of the word "deliberately" in the provocation context, the suggestion that loss of the power of self-control was akin to automatism, and the direction that the provocation had to be such as to induce the hypothetical person to act as the accused had acted, rather than simply to have lost self-control to the point of forming and acting on a murderous intent. The court found that the Judge's words could have been understood as suggesting that if the accused made a deliberate decision to kill, he could not in law have been provoked, which would have been wrong in law and prejudicial to the accused. The court also found that some of the ideas deployed by the Judge to explain the concept of provocation were potentially hazardous, and the directions given in this case could well have led the jury into an improper understanding of the legal test for whether the accused did in fact lose his power of self-control.

Lastly, the court considered the issue regarding the direction the Judge gave about the use to which certain evidence could be put. The court found that the Judge's direction invited improper use of the evidence, which suggested that the killing was planned and premeditated. The degree of prejudice inherent could not be regarded as insubstantial, and there was therefore a real risk of a miscarriage of justice on this point also.

For the reasons given, the appeal was allowed, the conviction was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

Orders