No right of appeal

Press, 17 September 1976, Page 3

No right of appeal

PA Wellington The Court of Appeal has decided that it has no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal by Erich Geiringer, a doctor, against a Supreme Court decision refusing him costs. The costs arose from a five-day trial in which Dr Geiringer was charged with rape, but was acquitted. He subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court by way of motion for an order for costs under section 5 of the Costs in Criminal Cases Act, 1967.

The Court of Appeal hearing Dr Geiringer’s appeal comprised Mr Justice Richmond (president), Mr Justice Woodhouse, and Mr Justice Cooke. Mr M. A. Bungay, with him Mr T. J. Castle, appeared for the appellant, and Mr J. H. C. Larsen for the Crown.

Giving the judgment of the Court, Mr Justice Richmond

said that the Court was concerned only with the preliminary point of whether it had jurisdiction to determine an appeal from the refusal of the judge to award costs. Mr Bungay had conceded that if there was a right of appeal, it arose only by virtue of section 66 of the Judicature Act. 1908. Mr Justice Richmond said that it was established by case law that section 66 conferred a right of appeal only in. civil matters. “Unless, therefore, the application for costs which was made in the Supreme Court can be classed as a civil proceeding, there is no right of appeal by virtue of section 66,” he said.

The appellant’s trial was undoubtedly a criminal proceeding, and the question was whether his subsequent application for costs was so closely linked with the trial that it should properly be regarded as a criminal cause

or matter. Mr Bungay had argued that the criminal proceedings came to an end when the. appellant was acquitted by the jury, and accordingly the subsequent application for costs should be regarded as a civil rather than a criminal proceeding. Their Honours adopted the view expressed in an English case (ex parte Woodhall) that the words “any criminal cause or matter” applied “to; a decision by way of judicial determination of any question raised in or with regard to the proceedings, the subject matter of which is criminal. at whatever stage of the proceedings the question arises.”

In the result, the Court considered that it had no appellate jurisdiction in the case. It had no doubt that the appellant’s application for costs should be classified as a criminal rather than civil proceeding.