Lam San Yau v Hksar

Judgment Date26 January 1999
Subject MatterMiscellaneous Proceedings (Criminal)
Judgement NumberFAMC25/1998
CourtCourt of Final Appeal (Hong Kong)
FAMC000025/1998 LAM SAN YAU v. HKSAR

FAMC000025/1998

FAMC No. 25 of 1998

IN THE COURT OF FINAL APPEAL OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS NO. 25 OF 1998 (CRIMINAL)

(ON APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL

FROM CACC No. 775 OF 1997)

_____________________

Between:
LAM SAN YAU Applicant
AND
HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION Respondent

_____________________

Appeal Committee: Mr Justice Litton PJ, Mr Justice Ching PJ and Mr Justice Bokhary PJ

Date of Hearing: 26 January 1999

Date of Determination: 26 January 1999

_______________________________

D E T E R M I N A T I O N

_______________________________

Mr Justice Bokhary PJ:

1. This is an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal. It is made out of time and requires an extension of time. The applicant was convicted before Beeson J and a jury on one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs. These drugs consisted of 600.88 grammes of a mixture containing 218.74 grammes of heroin hydrochloride and 3,300 tablets containing 69.43 grammes of midazolam maleate.

2. The police officers who gave evidence for the prosecution said this. They found the applicant in a building carrying two carrier bags. Those bags contained the large quantity of drugs the subject-matter of the count.

3. Clearly the value of such drugs and the way in which they were packaged supported an irresistible inference that they were for trafficking rather than self-use.

4. In his evidence, the applicant denied that he was carrying those drugs. According to him, he was a drug addict and had gone to the building with two syringes and a small packet of drugs in order to inject himself. The two carrier bags of drugs were, he said, "planted" on him by the officers in order to "frame" him.

5. At the trial, the prosecution led evidence to the effect that the officers had been engaged in a drug surveillance operation of which the applicant was a "target".

6. In the Court of Appeal, the applicant complained that this evidence was inadmissible. Delivering the judgment of that court, Mortimer VP rightly pointed out that the complaint was wholly misconceived. Although such evidence was inadmissible, the applicant could not complain of its reception since he had relied on the fact of his being a target as giving the officers a motive to frame him.

7. The complaint which the applicant now wishes to air before the Court of Final Appeal is one the focus of which is not on the reception of the evidence but is instead on jury directions thereon. The applicant wishes to argue, as his first ground, that it was "incumbent on [the judge] to give a clear, emphatic and separate direction to the jury that such evidence can never prove the guilt of the accused" and that "the Court of Appeal failed to recognize that the absence of such a direction was fatal to the conviction".

8. Having read the summing-up as a whole, we do not think that there is any danger that the jury were left with the impression that such evidence could prove the applicant's guilt. The jury would have known full well that in order to convict they had to be sure of two things. First, that...

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