Cyprus, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 31 July 2020, Antoniou v. Police

The Supreme Court responded to two main grounds of appeal in connection with the findings of the Court of first instance. The first one concerns the conviction of the Defenant/Appellant as such and the other one is related with the nature and the magnitude of the prison sentence which was imposed on the Defendant/Appellant.

The Supreme Court replied to the allegations made by the Defendant/Appellant, i.e., that the Court of first instance found him guilty for an offence which did not exist, violating the fundamental legal doctrine, nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, and, in this case the Defendant/Appellant having indeed been convicted of a crime which did not exist in law, then, despite the fact that the issue was not raised at first instance, the Court must annul the sentence. However, the Supreme Court held that, this is not the case and what is at stake is a formal or even substantial handicap of the indictment, therefore it is inappropriate for the Defendant/Appellant to raise the point at this very late stage of the proceedings.

In relation to the first ground of appeal, the Supreme Court found that the relevant State regulations established a crime. They prohibited unnecessary movements, which were identified in contrast to the cases of exhaustively defined movements that were exempted from the essentially general prohibition. Nevertheless, it was not enough that the movement was covered by some of the exceptions to be legal. The person moving had to, without prejudice to paragraph 2 (a), bring with him/her "an identity card or a passport with additional proof, when requested by the competent authorities". The Supreme Court also clarified that the possession of an "identity card or passport with additional proof" did not make the movement legal automatically. The primary requirement was that the movement fall within one of the exceptions.

As far as the second ground of appeal was concerned, the Supreme Court noted that to review whether the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive, it should examine the circumstances which were before the Court of first instance when deciding. The Court then mentioned that it was within its judicial knowledge the situation prevailing when the Court of first instance was called to decide on the Defendant’s/Appellant’s sentence. The element of general deterrence was strong and appellate Court Justices agreed with the approach adopted by the Court of first instance that in order to play their important role in society, but also to send the right message, the court of first instance had to impose, under certain circumstances, strict and deterrent sentences.

In the context of imposing a deterrent sentence, although to a lesser extent, the factor of individualization at sentencing should not be ignored by a court in order to reflect important individual characteristics relating to the offence and the offender. It was held that the Court of first instance did not have before it all the necessary evidence in order to form a clear picture of the Defendant’s/Appellant’s case and determine an appropriate sentence.

Moreover, the Court mentioned that the process of deciding on the sentence for a particular case constitutes a multidimensional judicial task. Hence, it is crucial when the Court considers the imposition of an imprisonment as a sentence for offences where such sentence is not normally imposed, according to the law, for the court to have all the evidence.

Additionally, the Supreme Court Judges pointed out that intervention by the Supreme Court is possible only where the contested sentence, objectively judged, is either manifestly insufficient or manifestly excessive. In addition, in cases where an error of principle is found.