PART X
APPEALS

(b) Revision

372. The High Court may call for and examine the record of any criminal proceedings before any subordinate court for the purpose of satisfying itself as to the correctness, legality or propriety of any finding, sentence or order recorded or passed, and as to the regularity of any proceedings of any subordinate court.

373.-(1) In the case of any proceedings in a subordinate court, the record of which has been called for or which has been reported for orders or which otherwise comes to its knowledge, the High Court may–

(a) in the case of conviction, exercise any of the powers conferred on it as a court of appeal by sections 366, 368 and 369 and may enhance the sentence; or
(b) in the case of any other order other than an order of acquittal, alter or reverse such order, save that for the purposes of this paragraph a special finding under subsection (1) of section 219 of this Act shall be deemed not to be an order of acquittal.

(2) No order under this section shall be made to the prejudice of an accused person unless he has had an opportunity of being heard either personally or by an advocate in his own defence; save that an order reversing an order of a magistrate made under section 129 shall be deemed not to have been made to the prejudice of an accused person within the meaning of this subsection.

(3) Where the sentence dealt with under this section has been passed by a subordinate court, except if the matter involved a sexual offence, the High Court shall not inflict a greater punishment for the offence, which in the opinion of the High Court the accused has committed, than might have been inflicted by the court which imposed the sentence.

(4) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to preclude the High Court converting a finding of acquittal into one of conviction where it deems necessary so to do in the interests of justice.

(5) Where the High Court revises the record of proceedings in a subordinate court involving a sexual offence, it may if it considers that the justice of the case so requires inflict a punishment greater than that which the convicting court might have imposed but which the High Court could impose if the matter were to come to it on appeal as if the matter were in fact on appeal.

(6) In this section the term "sexual offence" means any of the Cap.16 offences created in Chapter XV of the Penal Code.


374. No party has any right to be heard either personally or by advocate before the High Court when exercising its power of revision; save that the Court may, if it thinks fit when exercising such powers, hear any party either personally or by advocate, and that nothing in this section shall be deemed to affect subsection (2) of section 373.


375. All proceedings of the High Court in the exercise of its revisional jurisdiction may be heard and any judgment or order thereon may be made or passed by one judge:

Provided that when the court is composed of more than one judge and is equally divided in opinion, the sentence or order of the subordinate court shall be upheld.


376. When a case is revised by the High Court it shall certify its decision or order to the court by which the sentence or order so revised was recorded or passed, and the court to which the decision or order is so certified shall thereupon make such orders as are conformable to the decision certified and, if necessary, the record shall be amended in accordance therewith.