HKSAR v. LEUNG LONG YIN
The court held that the appellant's exercise of the right to silence could not be treated as bringing suspicion upon him and therefore the magistrate's refusal to award costs on that basis was wrong; the appeal was allowed and the appellant was awarded his trial and appeal costs.
Source-derived case information.
- Citation
- HKSAR v. LEUNG LONG YIN
- Court
- Court of First Instance
- Jurisdiction
- Hong Kong
- Judgment Date
- 21 December 2011
- Case Number
- HCMA599/2011
- Procedural Posture
- Criminal Appeal (appeal Against Refusal of Costs Following Acquittal) / Judgment on Appeal
- Outcome
- Appeal allowed; appellant awarded trial and appeal costs.
- Legal Topics
- Right to Silence, Costs on Acquittal, Magistrates' Discretion, Appeal
- Source Language
- en
Source-derived case record
Summary, issues, holding and outcome
More case intelligence is available
Unlock the full research layer for this judgment.
Procedural Posture
Criminal Appeal (appeal Against Refusal of Costs Following Acquittal) / Judgment on Appeal
Legal Issues
- 1 Whether the appellant's exercise of the right to silence can be treated as bringing suspicion upon him so as to justify refusal of costs upon acquittal
- 2 Whether the appellant should be awarded trial and appeal costs
Ratio Decidendi
The court held that the appellant's exercise of the right to silence could not be treated as bringing suspicion upon him and therefore the magistrate's refusal to award costs on that basis was wrong; the appeal was allowed and the appellant was awarded his trial and appeal costs.
Court Disposition
Appeal allowed; appellant awarded trial and appeal costs.
Orders
- Appellant awarded his trial costs.
- Appellant awarded his costs of this appeal.
Full Case Text
Judgment text and source record
1 paragraphs
bjbj g6q) __________ Before: The Honourable Mrs Justice V Bokhary in Court Date of Hearing: 21 December 2011 Date of Judgment: 21 December 2011 _______________ J U D G M E N T _______________ The Appellant was acquitted in the Magistrate s Court on a charge of indecent assault but was refused costs because the Magistrate (Marco Esq.) took the view that he had brought suspicion upon himself. The Appellant now appeals against that refusal of costs. The refusal of costs was based to a material extent on the Appellant s failure to proclaim his innocence at once. In not doing that, the Appellant was exercising his right to silence. A person s exercise of his right of silence is not to be treated as bringing suspicion upon himself so as to justify depriving him of costs upon his acquittal. The appeal is allowed to award the Appellant his trial costs. [The Appellant asked for his costs of the appeal and the Respondent did not oppose such costs.] I award the Appellant his costs of this appeal. (V. Bokhary) Judge of the Court of First Instance High Court Ms Gekko Lan, instructed by Messrs Li, Wong, Lam & W I Cheung, for the Appellant Ms Eva Chan, of the Department of Justice, for the Respondent PAGE - A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V gd4t hJ;C hN:e hfc[ hN:e h 1_ hN:e 1udk 1udk [Content_Types].xml Iw}, $yi} _rels/.rels theme/theme/themeManager.xml K Y, sQ}# theme/theme/theme1.xml w toc'v )I`n 3Vq%'#q x}r :\TZaG I u3 L+M2 e\O* $*c? )6-r IqbJ#x ,AGm T[XF64 E)`# R>QD =(K& =al- 4vfa 0%M0 theme/theme/_rels/themeManager.xml.rels 5 6?$Q K(M&$R(.1 [Content_Types].xmlPK _rels/.relsPK theme/theme/themeManager.xmlPK theme/theme/theme1.xmlPK theme/theme/_rels/themeManager.xml.relsPK <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <a:clrMap xmlns:a="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main" bg1="lt1" tx1="dk1" bg2="lt2" tx2="dk2" accent1="accent1" accent2="accent2" accent3="accent3" accent4="accent4" accent5="accent5" accent6="accent6" hlink="hlink" folHlink="folHlink"/> i$&H @d/Z o!@R< 5%4j 5%4j >~t6 setup HCMA.dot setup Microsoft Office Word Judiciary Hong Kong Title Microsoft Office Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8