Qurai v State [2015] FJSC 15; CAV24.2014 (20 August 2015)

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Coram : Hon. Mr. Justice Saleem Marsoof,
Justice of the Supreme Court
Hon. Madam Justice Chandra Ekanayake,
Justice of the Supreme Court
Hon. Mr. Justice William Calanchini,
Justice of the Supreme Court

Date of Hearing : 7th and 11th August 2015
Date of Judgment : 20th August 2015

[1] The Petitioner lodged a petition dated 11th October 2014 seeking special leave to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal dated 2nd October 2014 by which the said Court had partly allowed the Petitioner's appeal against sentence and varied the term of 7 years imprisonment imposed by the High Court for aggravated robbery contrary to section 311 (1) (a) of the Crimes Decree No. 44 of 2009, by deducting from the said term of imprisonment, the period of 5 months spent by the Petitioner in remand.

[2] The only ground of appeal set out in the said petition was "that the learned Judge erred in law when he did not take the early guilty plea as a separate mitigating factor and accordingly allow an appropriate discount".

[3] It is noteworthy that after filing his aforesaid petition seeking special leave to appeal, the Petitioner filed a petition for abandonment of appeal dated 17th July 2015 through the Legal Aid Commission, giving Court notice that he does not intend to prosecute his application for special leave to appeal and moving for leave of Court to abandon all further proceedings in regard to his application for special leave.

[4] When the Petitioner's petition seeking special leave to appeal was taken up for hearing on 7th August 2015, the Petitioner was represented by his counsel, Mr. J. Savou of the Fiji Legal Aid Commission, who informed Court that the petition of abandonment of appeal was filed in Court on the instructions of the Petitioner, who had voluntarily signed the said petition.

[5] However, following the guidelines enunciated in Masirewa v The State [2010] FJSC 5; CAV0014.2008S, the Petitioner was questioned by Court to ascertain whether his decision to withdraw his application for special leave to appeal had been made deliberately, intentionally and without mistake. The Petitioner informed Court that he wished to pursue his initial application for special leave to appeal.

[6] In those circumstances, Mr. Savou sought permission of Court to withdraw from the proceedings, which application was allowed by Court. Thereafter, the hearing was re-scheduled for 11th August 2015 to enable the Petitioner to get ready to argue his application for special leave to appeal in person or through counsel of his choice.

[7] When the application for special leave to appeal was taken up for hearing on 11th August 2015, the Petitioner, who appeared in person, informed Court that he has filed his further written submissions dated 11th August 2015 to supplement the written submissions filed by him previously on 9th July 2015. In terms of his petition and these written submissions, the Petition sought the permission of Court to urge the following grounds of appal against his sentence:-

[8] In my view, it would be more logical and convenient to consider the three grounds urged by the Petitioner in the reverse order, taking ground (3) for consideration at the outset and then considering grounds (2) and (1) in that order. However, before considering these grounds in the context of the threshold criteria set out in section 7(2) of the Supreme Court Act No. 14 of 1998 in greater detail, it might be useful to refer briefly to the background facts of this case.

[9] On 12th December 2010 at about 2.15 p.m., Ashika Prasad, a 25 year old staff nurse of Nabouwalu Hospital was sleeping alone in room No. 204 at Annandale Apartment, situated at Waimanu Road, Suva, when the Petitioner, who was at that time 21 years old and unemployed, entered her room with Josevata Tagicakibau, who was 23 years and unemployed.

[10] Ashika Prasad woke up when she realised that somebody was inside the room, and the Petitioner and Tagicakibau threatened her to give them some cash. The victim was scared and told them that they could take whatever they desire as she had no cash. They then took her Toshiba laptop, her LG phone, a Canterbury carry bag and a wallet all valued at $2,250.00, and fled.

[11] The Petitioner, who took with him the LG phone worth $600.00, was arrested the same day and the LG phone was found in the taxi he was travelling. He was cautioned interviewed and admitted to robbing the victim, Ashika Prasad.

[12] Tagicakibau was arrested and interviewed on a later date and he too admitted to robbing the said victim. He gave information to the police about the whereabouts of the Toshiba laptop which he had sold to another person, and the laptop valued at $1600.00 was recovered by the police.

[13] The Canterbury carry bag and the wallet, both valued at $50.00 were not recovered.

[14] Charged with the offence of aggravated robbery contrary to section 311(1)(a) of the Crimes Decree 2009, on 11th May 2011 the Petitioner and Tagicakibau pleaded guilty to the charge at the High Court of Fiji at Suva, and each were sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of five years.

[15] The Petitioner and Tagicakibau filed an application for leave to appeal against sentence on 24th May 2011, and by the Ruling of a single Judge of the Court of Appeal dated 26th July 2013, leave to appeal was granted on two issues as to whether the High Court had erred in (1) enhancing the sentences by treating certain factors that constituted ingredients of the offence of aggravated robbery as aggravating factors and (2) failing to deduct from the sentence the period within which the appellants were in remand.

[16] The appeal was then brought before the full Court of Appeal for hearing on the 9th September 2014, and that Court by its unanimous judgment pronounced on 2nd October 2014, partly allowed the appeal and made order varying the sentence by reducing the imposed sentence by 5 months for time spent in remand.

[17] It is important to note at the outset that while Section 98(3)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji confers on the Supreme Court the exclusive jurisdiction, "subject to such requirements as prescribed by law", to hear and determine appeals from all final judgments of the Court of Appeal, Section 7(2) of the Supreme Court Act No. 14 of 1998, sets out stringent criteria for the grant of special leave to appeal in the following manner:-

"In relation to a criminal matter, the Supreme Court must not grant special leave to appeal unless –

(b) a substantial question of principle affecting the administration of criminal justice is involved; or

[18] It is manifest from the language used in the above quoted provision of the Supreme Court Act that special leave should not be granted as a matter of course. It is noteworthy that, as this Court was constrained to observe in Aminiasi Katonivualiku v. The State [2003] FJSC 17; 01.1999 (179 (17 April 2003) at page 3, that –

"......the Supreme Court is not a Count of criminal appeal or general review nor is there an appeal to the Court as a matter of right and, whilst we accept that in an application for special leave some elaboration on the grounds of appeal may have to be entertained, the Court is necessarily confined within the legal parameters set out above, to an appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal which in this instance, was an order for a new trial."

[19] The above passage has been cited with approval in subsequent decisions of this Court such as Raura v The State [2006] FJSC 4; CAV0010U.2005S (4 May 2006); Chand v The State [2012] FJSC 6; CAV14/2010 (9th May 2012) and Chaudhry v The State [2014] FJSC 14; CAV0018.2014 (14 Nov 2014). The parameters of Section 7(2) of the Supreme Court Act are demarcated by the concepts of "general legal importance", "substantial question of principle" and "substantial and grave injustice", which were amply illustrated in the following dictum of Lord Sumner in Ibrahim v Rex [1914] A.C. 599 at page 614:-

"Leave to appeal is not granted 'except where some clear departure from the requirements of justice' exists: Riel v. Reg ( 10 App. Case. 675; nor unor unless by a disregard of the forms of legal process, or by some violation of the principles of natural justice or otherwise, substantial and grave injustice has bene': >re Abraham MalloMallory Diry Dittet (1887) 12 App. Case. 45 is t is true that these are cases of applications for special leave to appeal, but the Board has repeatedly treated applications for leave to appeal and the hearing of criminal appeals as beion the same footing: <160;Rie160;case&#16e supra; ex pDeeming [ [1982] A.C. 422. The Board cannot give special leave to appeal where the grounds suggested could not sustain the appeal itself; and, conversely, it cannot allow an appeal on gs that would not have suffisufficed for the grant of permission to bring it.

[20] The dictum of Lord Sumner was adopted as the locus classicus on the matter when dealing with applications for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from decisions of the Supreme Courts of Sri Lanka, India and Mauritius in criminal cases, respectively in Senene v. The Kin0;King [19 All ER 36, AIR [1936] P36] P.C. 289, Pritam Singh v. The State AIR [1950] SC 169 and Badry v. The Director of Public Prosecutions [1982] UKPC 1. The same principles have becorpo intoion 7(2n 7(2) of ) of the Sthe Supreme Court Act.

[21] In the light of these judicial decisions, it is necessary to examine whether any of the grounds urged, and submissions made, by the Petitioner are of sufficient substance to cross the stringent threshold laid down in Section 7(2) of the Supreme Court Act.

[22] It is noteworthy that the three grounds on which the Petitioner seeks special leave to appeal from this Court as set out in paragraph 7 of this judgment, all relate to factors which the Petitioner contends should have properly been taken into consideration by the High Court Judge in sentencing the Petitioner for the offence for which he had pleaded guilty at the first available occasion. The Petitioner has not expressly adverted to any errors in the impugned judgment of the Court of Appeal. However, since the Petitioner is unrepresented, this Court will extend him some leniency in regard to procedural matters.

[23] Although the Petitioner has not formulated his grounds of appeal in a manner that would highlight what he considered to be errors in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, this Court would consider his application for special leave to on the basis that the Petitioner's grievance is that the three grounds adverted to him were not properly considered by the Court of Appeal in its impugned judgment.

[24] So paraphrased, ground (3) relied upon by the Petitioner for seeking special leave to appeal from this Court, which I find convenient to deal with at the outset, is that the Court of Appeal erred in law in affirming the sentence imposed on the Petitioner by the High Court by taking into consideration "cases with serious aggravating factors and hence considering the tariff for this kind of aggravated robbery"

[25] In this context, it is noteworthy that the Petitioner was convicted for the offence of aggravated robbery for which and the maximum penalty set by section 311 (1) of the Crimes Decree is 20 years imprisonment. Consistently with section 4(2) of the Sentencing and Penalties Decree of 2009, the High Court Judge in his sentencing remarks dated 23rd May 2011 took into consideration the then prevailing tariff for aggravated robbery and commenced his computation of sentence with a head sentence of 8 years of imprisonment.

[26] The Petitioner does not complain before this Court about the selection of this head sentence. Indeed, it is noteworthy that at paragraph [29] of its judgment in Nawalu v The State (2013) FJSC 11; CAV0012.2012 (28th August 2013), this Court cited with approval the following contemporaneous observation of Calanchini P in Samuel Donald Singh v State Crim. AAU15 and 16 of CalanCalanchini P in the Court of Appeal said:

"...there is ample authority in this Jurisdiction for concluding that the appropriate tariff for robbith violence is now 10 to 16 years imprisonment. In selectilecting 10 years as a starting point the learned trial judge has started as the lower end of the range."

[27] In paragraph [3] of its judgment in Wise v The State [2015] FJSC 7; CAV0004.2015 (24 April 2015), which was another case of aggravated robbery committed in 2010, this Court described sentences of imprisonment similar to that imposed by the High Court on the Petitioner in the instant case as "lenient".

[28] The gist of the Petitioner's contention in regard to the aggravating factors referred to in ground (3) urged by him is that the Court of Appeal took into consideration the tariff applicable to cases that were comparatively more serious cases of aggravated robbery than the instant case. This was not a ground urged by the Petitioner before the Court of Appeal or on which the Petitioner was granted leave to appeal by the single Judge of the Court of Appeal.

[29] As already noted in paragraph 15 of this judgement, the ground pertaining to aggravating factors on which leave to appeal was granted to the Petitioner was whether certain factors that constituted ingredients of the offence of aggravated robbery were considered by the trial judge as aggravating factors.

[30] In paragraph [10] of its sentencing judgment, the High Court was guided by section 4(2)(j) of the Sentencing and Penalties Decree which required amongst other things, the presence of any aggravating or mitigating factors to be considered, dealt with the aggravating factors pertaining to the offence committed by the Petitioner and his co-accused Tagicakibau in the following manner:-

(d) Stealing of laptops and mobile phones was treated a serious attack on another person's personal belongings.

Considering all the above aggravating factors your sentence is increased by 4 years. Now your sentence is 12 years imprisonment." (Emphasis added)

[31] In this regard, the High Court had taken into consideration consistently with sections 4(2)(c) and (d) of the Sentencing and Penalties Decree, the nature and gravity of the offence and its impact on the victim, particularly, the injury, loss or damage resulting from it. The High Court was mindful of the circumstances of the robbery and that it involved the invasion of the privacy of a nurse who was at that time sleeping in the privacy of her room and was rudely shocked by the intrusion of the Petitioner and another person who threatened her and parted with all what she had in her possession.

[32] Accordingly, in paragraph [8] of its sentencing judgment, the High Court stressed in particular that entering a motel in the capital city is a serious matter as people from outstations and foreigners stay there, and that such entry will cause severe inconvenience to the travellers and economical loss to the owner of the motel to the great detriment of society. Court also emphasised that most, if not, all users of laptops and mobile phones keep their important personal data including their contacts and credit card accounts in these equipment, which when lost can cause serious loss and inconvenience to themselves and others.

[33] The Court of Appeal examined in paragraph [14] of its impugned judgment section 311 (1)(a) and (b) of the Crimes Decree and observed in paragraph [15] of its judgment that-

"[15] By adverting to the language of the above section, what qualifies the offence of robbery simpliciter to one of aggravated robbery is either it should have been committed jointly by one or more other persons or at the time of the robbery, there has to be an offensive weapon in the possession of a culprit."

[34] In the light of the observations of the High Court referred to in paragraphs [30], [31] and [32] of this judgment, it is clear that the aggravating factors considered by the trial judge were not mere ingredients of the offence of aggravated robbery under section 311 (1)(a) of the Crimes Decree on which the charge was based. The matters considered by the High Court as aggravating factors and quoted in paragraph [29] of this judgment emphasise the serious nature of the offence committed by the Petitioner and his co-accused.

[35] There is absolutely no doubt that it was proper to add 4 years to the head sentence in the circumstances of this case, and considering the very stringent threshold criteria set out in the Supreme Court Act and adverted to earlier in this judgment, I find that ground (3) relied upon by the Petitioner does not justify the grant of special leave to appeal.

[36] The next ground for consideration is ground (2) which is that the Court of Appeal erred in law in affirming the sentence imposed on the Petitioner by the High Court notwithstanding "the sudden large jumps of sentence on the current sentence in comparison to the Petitioner's previous convictions". In my view, this is another facet of ground (3) which has been already considered.

[37] My understanding of ground (3) is that the sentence imposed on him by the High Court in the instant case is too high compared to his previous convictions. The record of this case does contain a schedule of the previous convictions of the Petitioner, which is reproduced below:-

	COURT	OFFENCE	SENTENCE	C.F.
19/10/2004 23/03/2005 03/06/2005 03/06/2005 03/05/2006 11/05/2007 25/06/2007 23/08/2007	Suva Nasinu Suva Suva Nasinu Suva Suva Suva High Court	Larceny in Dwelling House. House Breaking Entering And Larceny. Larceny. Larceny from Dwelling House. House Breaking Entering and Larceny (2 counts). Found in possession of Dangerous Drugs. Robbery with Violence. Found in Possession of Dangerous Drugs.	6 months imp suspended for 12 months. Bound over in the sum of $200.00 not to re-offend within 12 months. 2 years probation supervised by parents and Social Welfare Officer. 2 years probation supervised by parents and Social Welfare Officer. 18 months imp. Both sentence to run concurrent –Total 18 months imp. 28 days to appeal. Fined $700.00. 28 days tap i/d 2 months imp. Sentenced to 3 ½ years imp. Appellant appeal against the sentence on 21/09/07. Appeal allowed and sentence substituted with 2 yrs. (Cr. App. No. 90/07 refers). 4 months imp. To be served consecutive to your current term but concurrent to your 9 months imprisonment term in court file no. 415/06 or HAC 32/06.	1879/04 101/05 1818/04 1705/04 416/06 846/07 1065/07 HAC 084/07

[38] No mention of the Petitioner's previous convictions was made by the High Court Judge in his sentencing judgment. As this Court observed in paragraph [22] of its judgment in Wise v The State, supra -

"[22] An accused is sentenced for the offence he or she commits. Each is not to be punished for past crimes in his criminal history. But if you are a person with 22 prior convictions, or have a long criminal history of repeated offending the courts cannot grant you the discount available to a first offender."

[39] The Petitioner had 8 previous convictions at the time the impugned sentence was imposed, and the longest term of imprisonment imposed on him was 3 years and six months imprisonment for aggravated robbery contrary to section 293(1)(a) of the Penal Code in 2007, which was reduced on appeal to a sentence of 2 years imprisonment.

[40] The fact that the Petitioner got away lightly in the past having committed offences that were less serious cannot justify any clemency where he goes on to commit an offence as serious as the one in this case, and I find that ground (2) urged by him is devoid merit and does not justify the grant of special leave to appeal.

[41] This brings me to ground (1) on the basis of which this application for special leave to appeal is being supported, namely that the Court of Appeal erred in law in affirming the quantum of sentence imposed on the Petitioner by the High Court which did not consider the early guilty plea of the Petitioner as a separate mitigating factor.

[42] In his written submissions dated 11th August 2015, the Petitioner contends that "insufficient weight was given to the mitigating factors where 1 year is not warranted to substantiate a full remorse, cooperation with the police and recovery of the stolen properties"

[43] The Petitioner's reference in the above quoted submission to "1 year" derives from his own computation wherein he takes cognisance of the fact that the High Court Judge had increased the head sentence of 8 years imprisonment by adding 4 years on account of aggravating circumstances and his assumption that the early guilty plea entitles him to a discount of one-third of that aggregate of 12 years, namely 4 years, and that the remainder of 1 year was all the discount he got for mitigating factors.

[44] It is to be noted that the High Court Judge did consider the Petitioner's early guilty plea as a mitigating factor together with other mitigating factors. He started with a head sentence of 8 years, and added to it 4 years in view of certain aggravating factors identified by him, and then discounted from that 5 years on account of certain mitigating circumstances to arrive at the sentence of 7 years imprisonment imposed on the Petitioner with a 5 year non-parole period. In paragraph [11] of his sentencing judgment, the High Court Judge addressed the Petitioner, who was the 2nd Accused, and his co-accused in the following words:-

Considering all mitigating circumstances your sentence is reduced by 5 years. Now your sentence is 7 years."

[45] It is manifest that in regard to the Petitioner, the High Court Judge did take into consideration mitigating circumstances such as the Petitioner was only 22 years with two children at the time of commission of the offence, that he pleaded guilty at the earliest possible opportunity, he was remorseful and had cooperated with the Police at the investigation and that the laptop and the mobile phone were recovered. Accordingly, the Petitioner was given a discount of 5 years for the above mentioned mitigating circumstances, which brought down the sentence from 12 years to 7 years.

[46] The question the Petitioner urges for consideration by this Court for the purposes of his application for special leave to appeal is whether the failure of the trial judge to consider his early guilty plea separately from the other mitigating circumstances occasioned any substantial and grave injustice to the Petitioner or otherwise gave rise to a question of general legal importance or substantial question of principle affecting the administration of criminal justice. He has also submitted before this Court that his guilty plea at the earliest opportunity entitled him to a discount of one-third of the sentence of 12 years imprisonment adopted in this case.

[47] Guidelines for sentencing contained in the Sentencing and Penalties Decree of 2009 require a sentencing court to have regard to, amongst other things, the current sentencing practice and the terms of any applicable guideline judgment (section 4(2)(b) of the Decree), whether the offender pleaded guilty to the offence, and if so, the stage in the proceedings at which the offender did so or indicated an intention to do so (section 4(2)(f) of the Decree), the conduct of the offender during the trial as an indication of remorse or the lack of remorse (section 4(2)(g) of the Decree) and the presence of any aggravating or mitigating factor concerning the offender or any other circumstance relevant to the commission of the offence (section 4(2)(j) of the Decree).

[48] The Sentencing and Penalties Decree does not provide any specific guideline as to what methodology should be adopted by the sentencing court in computing the sentence, and subject to the current sentencing practice and terms of any applicable guideline judgment, leaves the sentencing judge with a degree of flexibility as to the sentencing methodology, which might often depend on the complexity or otherwise of every case.

[49] In Fiji, the courts by and large adopt a two-tiered process of reasoning where the sentencing judge or magistrate first considers the objective circumstances of the offence (factors going to the gravity of the crime itself) in order to gauge an appreciation of the seriousness of the offence (tier one), and then considers all the subjective circumstances of the offender (often a bundle of aggravating and mitigating factors relating to the offender rather than the offence) (tier two), before deriving the sentence to be imposed. This is the methodology adopted by the High Court in this case.

[50] It is significant to note that the Sentencing and Penalties Decree does not seek to tie down a sentencing judge to the two-tiered process of reasoning described above and leaves it open for a sentencing judge to adopt a different approach, such as "instinctive synthesis", by which is meant a more intuitive process of reasoning for computing a sentence which only requires the enunciation of all factors properly taken into account and the proper conclusion to be drawn from the weighing and balancing of those factors.

[51] In my considered view, it is precisely because of the complexity of the sentencing process and the variability of the circumstances of each case that judges are given by the Sentencing and Penalties Decree a broad discretion to determine sentence. In most instances there is no single correct penalty but a range within which a sentence may be regarded as appropriate, hence mathematical precision is not insisted upon. But this does not mean that proportionality, a mathematical concept, has no role to play in determining an appropriate sentence. The two-tiered and instinctive synthesis approaches both require the making of value judgments, assessments, comparisons (treating like cases alike and unlike cases differently) and the final balancing of a diverse range of considerations that are integral to the sentencing process. The two-tiered process, when properly adopted, has the advantage of providing consistency of approach in sentencing and promoting and enhancing judicial accountability, although some cases may not be amenable to a sequential form of reasoning than others, and some judges may find the two-tiered sentencing methodology more useful than other judges.

[52] The High Court in the instant case has adopted a two-tiered methodology and clearly set out the mitigating factors and given the Petitioner a discount of 5 years imprisonment on account of all the mitigating factors taken into consideration by the court, but without specifically identifying the discount for the plea of guilt.

[53] Although section 4(2)(j) of the Sentencing and Penalties Decree requires the High Court Judge to have regard to the presence of any aggravating or mitigating factor concerning the offender or any other circumstance relevant to the commission of the offence, there is no requirement that in any case where there are several mitigating circumstances, each one of them should be dealt with separately. While therefore, the failure to separately deal with each of the mitigating circumstances would not nullify the sentence, it goes without saying that it is a good sentencing practice to specify clearly the value of each discount when allowing for such matters as pleas of guilty, clear record, time on remand and the like, without clamping together all the mitigating factors and specifying one discount, as it happened in this case. The victim, the convict, counsel, appellate courts as well as the public can then readily comprehend the various components of a sentence and sentence appeals and public criticism of the judicial process could be prevented.

[54] There is no pronouncement of this Court on the question of the discount to be given for a guilty plea made at a very early stage, although this aspect of the matter was discussed by Madigan JA in his concurring opinion in Rainima v The State [2015] FJCA 17; AAU0022.2012 (27 February 2015) at paragraph [46] where his Lordship was constrained to observe as follows:-

"[46] Discount for a plea of guilty should be the last component of a sentence after additions and deductions are made for aggravating and mitigating circumstances respectively. It has always been accepted (though not by authorative judgment) that the "high water mark" of discount is one third for a plea willingly made at the earliest opportunity. This Court now adopts that principle to be valid and to be applied in all future proceedings at first instance."(Emphasis added)

[55] Having said that, his Lordship agreed with the other Justices of Appeal of the Court of Appeal (Calanchini P and Jayasuriya JA) that, given the very lenient sentence already passed on the appellant in that case, the appeal against sentence should be dismissed.

[56] This Court takes cognisance, as it is bound to in terms of section 4(2)(b) of the Sentencing Decree, the existence in Fiji of a sentencing practice of allowing a discount of one-third of the sentence for an early guilty plea. The contention of the Petitioner is that if he is given the benefit of the one-third discount for his guilty plea, that will then account for 4 years out of the total discount of 5 years imprisonment imposed on him, and that the remaining 1 year allowance is inadequate with respect to the other mitigating factors such as that the Petitioner was 22 years with two children at the time of commission of the offence, that he was remorseful and had cooperated with the Police at the investigation and that the laptop and the mobile phone were recovered.

[57] I do not find any merit in the above submission of the Petitioner in all the circumstances of this case, particularly in view of the fact that as observed in paragraphs [26] and [27] of this judgment, the head sentence of 8 years imprisonment adopted by the High Court Judge in computing the sentence to be imposed on the Petitioner is far below the tariff of 10 to 16 years imprisonment applicable in 2010 for the offence of aggravated robbery which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

[58] Hence, I hold that the approach adopted by the High Court of considering the early guilty plea together with other mitigating factors listed by the trial judge, did not occasion any substantial and grave injustice to the Petitioner or otherwise give rise to a question of general legal importance or substantial question of principle affecting the administration of criminal justice.

[59] Accordingly I hold that ground (1) urged by the Petitioner does not justify the grant of special leave to appeal.

[60] In the result, this Court makes order refusing the Petitioner's application for special leave to appeal, and affirms the decision of the Court of Appeal dated 2nd October 2014.

[61] I have read the draft judgment of Justice Saleem Marsoof and agree with the reasoning and conclusions therein.

Supreme Court of Fiji

Qurai v State [2015] FJSC 15; CAV24.2014 (20 August 2015)