The Court of Appeal, however, proceeded to summarise these six (6)
grounds of appeal into four (4) and then dealt with each of them seriatim. It
was only upon its analysis of the individual grounds of appeal that the Court
of Appeal concluded, at page 13 of its judgment, that “our objective
evaluation of the evidence on record leaves us with no reasonable doubt
on the guilt of the appellant. He was rightly convicted as charged.”
101. The Court also notes, from the record (pages 2 and 7 of the Ruling on
Review), that during the application for review of the Court of Appeal’s
decision, the Second Applicant raised four (4) grounds in support of his
application. The first of these grounds was that the decision of the Court of
Appeal was based on manifest error on the face of the record which had
resulted in a miscarriage of justice. In his submissions in support of the
application for review, the Second Applicant argued that the matters raised
in his notice of motion and accompanying affidavit were not considered by
the Court of Appeal at the time his appeal was heard and had the court
considered them it would not have dismissed his appeal.
102. In relation to the Second Applicant’s contentions, the Court of Appeal held
that “the allegation that the decision of the Court was based on a manifest
error on the face of the record resulting in the miscarriage of justice without
any elaboration [to be] baseless.”
103. Upon reviewing the record of the domestic proceedings, the Court finds that
the Second Applicant has not made out any grounds necessitating this
Court’s interference with the findings from the domestic courts. All that the
Second Applicant has done is to make a general allegation, without
attempting to demonstrate and prove which, of his grounds of appeal, were
actually not considered during the consideration of his appeal. In the
circumstances the Court finds the Second Applicant’s allegations without
merit and accordingly dismisses them.
104. Overall, therefore, the Court finds that the Respondent State violated both
Applicants’ right to fair trial by reason of denial of free legal assistance but
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