GROUND 1: THE APPELLANT HAS A JUSTIFIABLE SENSE OF GRIEVANCE AS A RESULT OF THE SENTENCE IMPOSED ON THE CO-OFFENDER CONSTANTINE ANAGNOSTOPOULOS
24In Green v The Queen [2011] HCA 49; 244 CLR 462, French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ referred as follows to the parity principle upon which the appellant relies:
"28. ... Consistency in the punishment of offences against the criminal law is 'a reflection of the notion of equal justice' and 'is a fundamental element in any rational and fair system of criminal justice'. It finds expression in the 'parity principle' which requires that like offenders should be treated in a like manner. As with the norm of 'equal justice', which is its foundation, the parity principle allows for different sentences to be imposed upon like offenders to reflect different degrees of culpability and/or different circumstances.
...
32. A court of criminal appeal deciding an appeal against the severity of a sentence on the ground of unjustified disparity will have regard to the qualitative and discretionary judgments required of the primary judge in drawing distinctions between co-offenders. Where there is a marked disparity between sentences giving rise to the appearance of injustice, it is not a necessary condition of a court of criminal appeal's discretion to intervene that the sentence under appeal is otherwise excessive ... " (Citations omitted).
25Their Honours went on to say that whether or not a sentence can be reduced on the ground of disparity to a level which, had there been no disparity, would have been regarded as erroneously lenient, the court's discretion does not require it to consider reducing a sentence to a level which would be "an affront to the proper administration of justice" (at [33]; see also Rees v R [2012] NSWCCA 47 at [50] and [67]; Ngati v R [2013] NSWCCA 203 at [80]).
26As Mason J put it in Lowe v The Queen [1984] HCA 46; 154 CLR 606 at 613:
"... [t]he justification which the courts assign for intervention in the case of disparity is that disparity engenders a justifiable sense of grievance in the applicant and an appearance of injustice to that impassive representative of the community, the objective bystander".
27Further, in Postiglione v The Queen [1997] HCA 26; 189 CLR 295 at 301, Dawson and Gaudron JJ observed that "[e]qual justice requires that like should be treated alike but that, if there are relevant differences, due allowance should be made for them". The Court may entertain a complaint based on the parity principle even though the co-offender was sentenced, as here, after the appellant (Jones v The Queen (1993) 67 ALJR 376 at 377).
28The total term of imprisonment to which the co-offender was sentenced for his supply offence exceeded that to which the appellant was sentenced by nine months, with the difference in the non-parole periods being six months. As the Crown submitted, these differences cannot be regarded as inconsequential. Nevertheless, they do not in my view reflect the following very significant differences between the appellant's and co-offender's offences and circumstances.
29First there is the feature, absent in the appellant's case, of the concurrence of the co-offender's supply offence sentence with that imposed upon him for his related importation offence. It is also concurrent with his sentence for the proceeds of crime offence. The co-offender's additional head sentence attributable to his conviction on the supply charge is 1 year and 9 months, as the remainder of that sentence is concurrent with that for the importation offence (and with the proceeds of crime offence). Likewise, his non-parole period was extended by only two years as a result of his supply offence.
30In comparing the sentences imposed upon the appellant and the co-offender regard must be had to the actual period that each is to serve by reason of his commission of the common offence (Postiglione at 301-2, 303 and 343). This does not mean that there should be a simple comparison between the appellant's head sentence of 12 years imprisonment and the additional period of 1 year and 9 months that the co-offender is required to serve by reason of the common offence. Such a "merely arithmetical comparison" would not be appropriate (Tran v The Queen [2006] NSWCCA 266 at [24] and see Ayik v R [2013] NSWCCA 119 at [33]). Nevertheless, the limited length of the additional sentence imposed upon the co-offender is a significant matter to consider in assessing whether the appellant would have a justifiable sense of grievance by reason of the sentences imposed upon him and the co-offender (see R v Freeman [2005] NSWCCA 460 at [20]-[23]; Bell v The Queen [2008] NSWCCA 206 at [37]-[40]).
31Another way of looking at the issue is that the co-offender's overall head sentence of 12 years and 9 months effectively reflected the co-offender's offence of importation as well as that of supply, whereas the applicant's head sentence of 12 years related only to his offence of supply.
32Secondly, the co-offender's supply offence involved two distinct acts of supply, both involving substantial quantities of drugs, whereas the appellant's involved only one. The co-offender's offence related to a gross weight of 582 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, whilst the appellant's related to a gross weight of 259 kilograms.
33The weight of drugs involved in an offence cannot generally be regarded as the chief factor to be taken into account in fixing a sentence for drug importation and supply (Wong v The Queen [2001] HCA 64; 207 CLR 584 at [67]-[70]). However it may be of significance in particular cases and was so regarded by this Court when re-sentencing the appellant ([2010] NSWCCA 111 at [81] - see [13] above). This Court said in that context that it was necessary that the appellant's sentence "reflected that enormity", referring to the large quantity of drugs the subject of the appellant's offence.
34As the appellant submitted on this appeal, if the quantity of drugs involved in his offence was of such importance in the determination of his sentence, logically the much greater quantity involved in the co-offender's supply offence (more than double) should be reflected in the differences between their sentences.
35The third difference relates to the roles played by the appellant and the co-offender. I leave out of account for the present the additional evidence that the appellant relies upon under ground 2. I acknowledge and take into account that the matters to which I refer in relation to this difference overlap to some extent with matters to which I have referred in relation to the first difference.
36Solomon DCJ sentenced the appellant on the basis that the appellant had "deep knowledge ... of the drug's importation and the value of the drugs warehoused by him" (see [10] above). This Court did not interfere with that finding on appeal and it thus formed one of the bases upon which the Court re-sentenced the appellant. However, the finding did not involve any conclusion as to the source of the appellant's knowledge and the circumstances in which he acquired it. Thus there was no finding that the appellant obtained possession of the substance substituted for drugs in the context of a broader criminal enterprise in which he was also involved. In contrast, it is clear that the co-offender's possession was of that character because of his involvement in the importation of the drugs and the supply of another parcel of the substance substituted for them.
37Whilst the co-offender's criminality in relation to the supply offence could not be regarded as embracing the importation, for which a separate charge could be, and was, laid, it was permissible to have regard to it in considering the context in which his supply offence occurred. As Hall J observed in Tu v R [2011] NSWCCA 31; 205 A Crim R 566 at [74]:
" ... the possession if obtained in the context of a criminal narcotic venture may be different from possession obtained in unplanned or unsophisticated circumstances. In this way, the overall context becomes pertinent to an assessment of the culpability of an accused for an offence of possession by seeing it in its context ... [so that] the circumstances relating to the process of importation may also be relevant to a charge of possession ...".
38Consistently with this, Adams J (with the concurrence of Hoeben CJ at CL and Hall J) concluded in Balloey v The Queen [2014] NSWCCA 165 at [31]:
"In the present case, so far as the judge used the evidence as to the appellant's involvement in the overall transaction to identify the particular nature of the conduct constituting the offence of attempting to possess the drug to determine the degree of his moral culpability and conclude it was of a high order ... , his Honour committed no error".