The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has granted special leave to convicted murderer Gregory August to challenge his sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
The Trinidad-based CCJ is holding a historic sitting here this week. The CCJ is the final court for Belize, the country among four Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries that have replaced the London-based Privy Council with the CCJ as their court of final appeal.
In November 2012, August was found guilty of stabbing 73-year-old Alvin Robinson to death inside his home and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
August would subsequently go before the Court of Appeal where the decision to condemn him was never challenged.
His attorney, Eamon Courtenay, told reporters that his client had applied to the CCJ, the country’s final court, for permission to appeal to the CCJ and to challenge the sentence.
“One of the grounds that we had put in our notice in the application was that it is unconstitutional to sentence somebody to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. When we went into court to start making the application the court immediately said to me, “Mr Courtenay, we are concerned about Section Seven of the Constitution [of Belize]. That is that this man has been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.”
“And so they felt that that was a matter that the Court of Appeal should consider,” he said, adding “so they are saying that the Court of Appeal should look at that. So what they did was to grant special leave for him to challenge his conviction”.
Courtenay said that the CCJ headed by its President Sir Dennis Byron agreed to send the matter back to the Court of Appeal to deal with the question of sentence and the question of a good character direction “and that the matter must be heard as quickly as possible”.
The case management for the matter is expected is set for Tuesday.
Source-CMC
