Revisiting the High Court's Revisionary Jurisdiction to Enhance Sentences in Criminal Cases

The High Court’s exercise of revisionary jurisdiction to enhance sentence is well entrenched. Yet in 1993, the Minister of Law stated in Parliament that the object of revision “is not to enhance sentences” and that sentences are “never enhanced on revision” except where the court below was unaware of a minimum mandatory sentence provided by statute. In this paper, we will consider the ambit of the High Court’s revisionary jurisdiction in the context of sentencing. The main theme behind the paper is that while the statutory provisions vesting the High Court with revisionary jurisdiction are wide and capable of being invoked in the context of sentencing, the exercise of such powers to enhance sentences can only be justified in highly exceptional cases. This is because very rarely can a sentence imposed by a subordinate court be described as being palpably wrong. Finally, we also revisit the merits of a suggestion previously raised in Parliament to provide for appeals from decisions made on revision to the Court of Appeal.