4. Appeals
4.1 The Australian legal system generally confers a right of appeal on any party to legal proceedings who is aggrieved by the result. The nature and extent of that right depends upon the nature of the proceedings, the type of order made and the rules of the particular court in which the proceedings were conducted. In criminal proceedings the prosecution normally has no right to appeal against a finding that the accused is not guilty of the offence charged though, in the Australian Capital Territory, there is a limited right to have the Supreme Court review decisions of law made by a Magistrate. Furthermore, where a conviction has been quashed on appeal there may be a further appeal against that decision. An accused may, of course, appeal against conviction.4.2 Both the prosecution and the defence have the right to appeal against the sentence imposed following a conviction. However, appellate courts have stressed that the prosecutor's right to appeal against the perceived inadequacy of a sentence should be exercised with due caution. The principle was explained by Sir Garfield Barwick, then Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, in an appeal from the District Court of New South Wales decided in 1977:
"Inadequacy of sentence ... is not satisfied by mere disagreement by the Court of Appeal with the sentence actually imposed. It means, in my opinion, such an inadequacy in the sentence as is indicative of error or departure from principle. No doubt, consistency in the sentences imposed by judges of the District Court is a desirable feature of criminal administration. Gross departure from what might in experience be regarded as the norm may be held to be error in point of principle ... But that consistency is not to be sought or secured, in my opinion, by the court of criminal appeal substituting in any case which the Attorney-General cares to bring before it, its own view of the appropriate sentence irrespective of the presence or absence of error on the part of the trial judge" (Griffiths v R (1977) 137 CLR 293 at 310).
Accordingly, an appeal against the inadequacy of sentence will normally be instituted by the prosecution only in exceptional cases where some error of principle can be identified or when the sentence is thought to be so grossly inadequate that it lies outside the range of discretion properly available to the judge in the circumstances. Where a prosecutor believes that the sentence falls into that category it is his duty to provide a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions so that the matter may receive due consideration.
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ANNUAL REPORT 2011-12 DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS 75
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