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HIGH COURT MALAYA PENANG
ABU BAKAR ALIF – Appellant
Versus
R – Respondent
[Criminal Appeal No: 31 Of 1952]
[1] [after dealing with other matters which are not relevant to this report, continued]: - The final ground of appeal is that the sentence is excessive. The learned Deputy Public Prosecutor on behalf of the Crown submitted that if the conviction were upheld he would suggest that this sentence was manifestly inadequate. The learned Magistrate has unfortunately given no reasons for imposing the sentence that he did and therefore before I can interfere I have to consider whether on the face of it this sentence is clearly wrong.
[2] In the case of Rex v. Ball 35 Cr App R 164 the Court of Criminal Appeal restated the principles which should guide an Appellate Court in considering the sentence passed by the Court below. "In the first place-, the judgment reads, "this Court does not alter a sentence which is the subject of an appeal merely because the members of the Court might have passed a different sentence. The trial Judge has seen the prisoner and heard his history and any witnesses to character he may have chosen to call. It is only when a sentence appears to err in principle that this Court will alter it. If a sentence is excessive or inadequate to such an extent as to satisfy this Court that when it was passed there was a failure to apply the right principles, then this Court will intervene-. In my opinion these remarks apply with equal force to appeals to the High Court from the Subordinate Courts. I am unable to say in this case that the sentence was excessive or inadequate to such an extent as to satisfy me that there was a failure to apply the right principles.
[3] There is an additional reason in this case why I should not interfere with the sentence. No information is available on the record as to the accused's background, antecedents or character. Whether in this instance the learned Magistrate omitted to call for such information or whether it was not available I do not know; bur I have frequently remarked upon the absence of information of this kind which might assist the Courts in arriving at a proper assessment of sentence, and this case is a good example. The case of Rex v. Ball 35 Cr App R 164 abovementioned arose from different sentences having been imposed upon two prisoners convicted of the same crime at the same time. The principles of punishment set out in the judgment in that case are so important that I think it right to quote further from that judgment at some length. The judgment proceeds as follows:
5"In deciding the appropriate sentence a Court should always be guided by certain considerations. The first and foremost is the public interest. The criminal law is publicly enforced, not only with the object of punishing crime, but also in the hope of preventing it. A proper sentence, passed in public, serves the public interest in two ways. It may deter others who might be tempted to try crime as seeming to offer easy money on the supposition, that if the offender is caught and brought to justice, the punishment will be negligible. Such a sentence may also deter the particular criminal from committing a crime again, or induce him to turn from a criminal to an honest life. The public interest is indeed served, and best served, if the offender is induced to turn from criminal ways to honest living. Our law does not, therefore, fix the sentence for a particular crime, but fixes a maximum sentence and leaves it to the Court to decide what is, within that maximum, the appropriate sentence for each criminal in the particular circumstances of each case. Not only in regard to each crime, but in regard to each criminal, the Court has the right and the duty to decide whether to be lenient or severe.
"It is for these reasons, and with these purposes in view, that before passing sentence the Court hears evidence of the antecedents and character of every convicted person. It follows that when two persons are convicted together of a crime or series of crimes in which they have been acting in c
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