Hong Kong Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Retrospective application of guidelines

Legal area

Court

28 Sept 2018

SECRETARY FOR JUSTICE v. LAU KWOK LEUNG

Citation

[2018] HKCFA 43
Court

Court of Final Appeal
Case number

FACC9/2018

Court of Final Appeal held the Court of Appeal was entitled to review and increase the magistrate's manifestly inadequate community service sentences under s81A but erred by applying the new Wong Chi Fung (CA) guidelines retrospectively to fix sentence lengths; s109A is to be measured by age at date of sentence (though youth remains a powerful mitigating factor if age threshold crossed), and accordingly the Court set aside the Court of Appeal custodial sentences and substituted imprisonment terms corresponding to time already served.
11 Nov 2008

HKSAR v. YEUNG KA CHUN, GARY

Citation

HKSAR v. YEUNG KA CHUN, GARY
Court

Court of Appeal
Case number

CACC500/2006

The Court applied the prevailing sentencing approach in force at the time of the offence (treating ketamine comparably with ecstasy under the then guidelines), held that the applicant must benefit from that approach, adopted a 12-year starting point appropriate for an ecstasy-equivalent importation, and after allowing a guilty-plea reduction substituted eight years imprisonment for the original ten-year sentence.
15 Sept 1998

HKSAR v. SEABROOK MARK ANTHONY

Citation

HKSAR v. SEABROOK MARK ANTHONY
Court

Court of Appeal
Case number

CACC364/1997

The Court held that sentencing must follow the practice prevailing at the time the offence was committed; guidelines in HKSAR v. LEE Tak-kwan, issued after the offence and sentence, do not apply retrospectively; accordingly the applicant was not entitled to the benefit of those later guidelines and the application for leave to appeal out of time was refused because the sentence was not shown to be wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

Hong Kong Case Law

SECRETARY FOR JUSTICE v. LAU KWOK LEUNG

HKSAR v. YEUNG KA CHUN, GARY

HKSAR v. SEABROOK MARK ANTHONY