One of the reforms introduced by the
Criminal Procedure Act 2009 was a change to the structure of what had previously been standard form criminal appeal grounds. The old statute required an appellant on a conviction appeal to establish one of three things:
- That the verdict was unreasonable or unsupported by evidence;
- That there was a wrong decision on a question of law; or
- That on any other basis there was a miscarriage of justice.
These three grounds were then qualified by the proviso that the appeal would not be allowed if the prosecution showed that there was no substantial miscarriage of justice. Under the new Act, the proviso was folded into the substantive appeal grounds, so that the court must allow the appeal if and only if:
(a) the verdict of the jury is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence; or
(b) as the result of an error or an irregularity in, or in relation to, the trial there has been a substantial miscarriage of justice; or
(c) for any other reason there has been a substantial miscarriage of justice.
