Court dismisses fourth application for miscarriage of justice as vexatious relitigation of withdrawn appeal.
Ireland (IE)
Legislator summary
AI generatedThe Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant's fourth application under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993 for a miscarriage of justice. Having previously rejected three similar attempts, the court found no new facts and deemed the repeated relitigation of a withdrawn appeal to be a flagrant abuse of process. Consequently, the application was rejected to prevent the vexatious re-litigation of already decided matters.
Legislator headnote
AI generateds. 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993; An application for a miscarriage of justice is an abuse of process and must be dismissed if it constitutes a vexatious attempt to relitigate matters already decided, particularly when the applicant has previously withdrawn their appeal.
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THE COURT OF APPEAL
Birmingham J.
Sheehan J.
Mahon J.
25CPA/16
The People at the Suit of the Director of Public Prosecutions
Respondent
V
Philippe Cauneze
applicant
Ex tempore Judgment delivered on the 15th day of April 2016 by
Mr. Justice Birmingham
1. The position here is that in March 2000, the applicant, Mr. Cauneze stood trial in the Central Criminal Court charged with a number
of offences and on the 10th March, 2000, he was convicted in respect of one count which was count 3 on the indictment, a count of
aggravated sexual assault. Since then the procedures that have been followed have been quite extraordinary. This is now the fourth
application pursuant to s. 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993, brought by Mr Cauneze.
2. This Court dealt with the third such application in November 2015 and delivered a detailed written judgment and ruling on the 21st
December, 2015. That judgement set out in some detail the history of the proceedings to that point. That judgment concluded as
follows:
“This is the third attempt to bring a s. 2 Miscarriage of Justice Application on the part of an applicant who withdrew his
appeal against conviction. Nothing whatever has been produced which could possibly be regarded as a new or newly
discovered fact. Regrettably, it must be said that this attempt to re-litigate what has already been decided is vexatious
and an abuse of process. The Court must therefore dismiss the application.”
3. Notwithstanding that judgment delivered in December 2015, Mr. Cauneze has sought to recast the matters that he has canvassed
so many times before. Nothing new whatsoever has emerged. Instead what has happened has been a still further attempt to
relitigate. The Court said on the last occasion that this was vexatious and an abuse of process, at this stage it is a flagrant abuse of
process and is entirely vexatious. The Court dismisses the application of Mr. Cauneze.