Flynn v The King

High Court of Australia|1949-07-01|Before: McTiernan JJ

High Court of Australia Latham C.J. Rich, Dixon and McTiernan JJ. Flynn v The King [1949] HCA 38

This is an application for special leave to appeal from a judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal. The applicant is Stanley Thomas Flynn, who was sentenced to imprisonment for life for manslaughter in the year 1935. The applicant claims that he has a right to a reduction of his sentence by virtue of certain Prison Regulations. The Prison Regulations as they were promulgated in 1923 applied to him in 1935 and up to the time of the repeal of those regulations in 1940. He contends that under those 1923 regulations a life sentence was in effect reduced to a sentence of twenty years and was further made subject to a marks system whereby by good conduct a prisoner could earn a reduction of his sentence. In fact the marks earned by the prisoner were calculated by the prison authorities and, if he had a right to be released upon the basis that the sentence was a twenty-year sentence subject to reduction in accordance with the marks system, he would have been entitled to be released in March of this year.

It is contended, however, for the applicant that at the time of the repeal in 1940 a right or privilege under the existing 1923 regulations had been acquired and had accrued. Section 17 of the Interpretation Act 1918-1938 provides that the repeal of regulations shall not, unless the contrary intention appears - "(a) affect any right, privilege, obligation, or liability acquired, accrued, or incurred under any regulations so repealed." Upon that provision the argument is founded that the applicant had a right measured by the number of marks earned to be released when he had completed the sentence of twenty years under reg. 155 of 1923. But at the time in 1940 when the repeal took place the applicant was only on the way towards acquiring a right to release. He had not then acquired a right to release. Neither had he acquired a right to have the regulations continued in operation in respect of himself. The applicant is not assisted by s. 17 of the Interpretation Act.

It is an essential part of the applicant's argument that the regulations give a right to release subject to the application of the marks system. The regulations are made under the Prisons Act 1903-1918 W.A. s. 21 (8). That provision is "The Governor may make regulations for all or any of the following purposes (that is to say): - (8) Providing for the ordinary remission of portions of sentences, and for extraordinary remission for special services, and for the forfeiture of remission for misconduct." The regulations authorized include regulations providing for ordinary remission of portions of sentences. This provision does not authorize a regulation reducing the sentence imposed by a court in accordance with a statute. Section 21 (8) authorizes only a regulation for remission of sentences and not for the imposition of another sentence than that imposed by a court. If reg. 155 were interpreted as itself reducing all life sentences to sentences for twenty years, the validity of the regulation would be doubtful. But it is not necessary to decide this question because reg. 155 does not purport to give any right to a prisoner. The word which is used in reg. 155 is the word "may." The prisoner may be released. The provision is not that the prisoner shall be released, and s. 32 of the Interpretation Act at least assists the argument that "may" should be interpreted here as conferring a power, and not as granting a right.

But, as is said in the judgment of the Full Court of the Supreme Court, the terms of reg. 155 are (apart from the point last-mentioned) not apt to create a right, because the provision relating to the release of the prisoner after twenty years is a provision which is made only for the purpose of determining the time at which he may be released subject to the marks system. It is not a provision to the effect that the prisoner may be released after a certain period or when certain conditions have been fulfilled. The regulations are regulations relating to the discipline and the management of the gaol, and the provision as to twenty years in reg. 155 is a provision which is introduced simply for the purpose of applying the marks system. There are no words in the regulations which are sufficiently clear to confer a right upon a prisoner to release, even though he has earned full marks. A similar view was taken of prison regulations which are not in identical terms but which are very similar in substance in Horwitz v. Connor [1] and Morriss v. Winter [2] .

Finally, in 1943 an amending regulation was made which referred to the provision in the 1940 regulations which corresponded to paragraph (i) in reg. 140 of the 1923 regulations. The regulation introduced in 1943 was this: -

The abovementioned Prison Regulations, 1940, are amended as follows: -

Regulation 152 is amended by adding at the end of paragraph (h) thereof a proviso as follows: - "Provided that this paragraph shall not apply to prisoners undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life in whose case the marks system established by this regulation shall apply only to enable the Governor in Council to determine whether or not the Royal Prerogative of mercy shall be exercised in favour of such prisoners".

Upon the view which I have expressed that the regulations do not alter the term of any sentence but only provide for remissions of a sentence by way of indulgence the applicant now before the Court is still a prisoner undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life. Indeed, the provision which reduces a life sentence to twenty years has been repealed, and he is clearly a prisoner undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life. Accordingly the 1943 regulation applies to him and in his case the marks system established by the current regulation applies only to enable the Governor in Council to determine whether or not the Royal Prerogative of mercy shall be exercised in favour of him. The position, therefore, is this: although independently of the repeal and amendment of the regulations the prisoner would in the normal course have been released in March last, now his only chance of obtaining release depends upon the exercise of the prerogative of mercy by the Governor in Council. In my opinion he has no legal right to obtain release, and therefore the application must be refused. Rich J.

This is an application for special leave to appeal from an order of the Supreme Court refusing a writ of habeas corpus to a prisoner who is held in custody in purported execution of a sentence imposed upon him after conviction for manslaughter.

In my opinion the application for special leave should be refused upon the ground that the prisoner is held in lawful custody. He claims that his custody is no longer lawful because of the provisions of the regulations relating to the management and control of the prisons of Western Australia. Regulations made in 1923 for that purpose provide that, in the case of a life sentence, for the purpose of determining the time at which under the prison regulations the prisoner may be released a life sentence or a death sentence commuted to one of life shall be deemed to be a period of twenty years subject to reduction under the marks system (reg. 155). Under the marks system all prisoners are entitled to earn marks towards the remission of sentence except where otherwise provided and to determine the sentence a method is prescribed which depends upon the sentence being for a fixed period. The prisoner claims that he has under those regulations earned sufficient marks to entitle him to release. The regulations were made under a provision of the Prisons Act 1903-1918, s. 21 (8), which enables the Governor in Council to make regulations providing for the ordinary remission of portions of sentences, and for extraordinary remission for special services, and for the forfeiture of remission for misconduct.

Even if the matter depended on the regulations of 1923 I think this application must fail. My reason for that opinion is that s. 21 (8) does not in my view authorize the Governor in Council to confer on prisoners a legal right to be set at liberty, but is concerned only with the management and discipline of the gaols and with conferring on gaolers an authority to set them at liberty upon the terms of the regulations made therein being complied with. The interpretation of a regulation-making power of this kind in relation to prisons is of some importance because the distinction between the execution of the sentence imposed upon a prisoner by the court and the exercise by the Crown, whether under the Prerogative alone or under the Prerogative as affected by provisions of legislation, of a power to remit sentences is one which the courts should be careful to maintain. It is pointed out in the case of Horwitz v. Connor [1] that if prisoners could resort to legal remedies to enforce gaol regulations responsibility for the discipline and control of prisoners in gaol would be in some measure transferred to the courts administering justice. For if statutes dealing with this subject matter were construed as intending to confer fixed legal rights upon prisoners it would result in applications to the courts by prisoners for legal remedies addressed either to the Crown or to the gaolers in whose custody they remain. Such a construction of the regulation-making power was plainly never intended by the legislature and should be avoided. An interpretation of the power to make prison regulations and of the regulations made thereunder as directed to discipline and administration and not to the legal rights of prisoners is in my opinion supported by the decision of this Court in Horwitz's Case [1] and the decision of Horridge J. in the case of Morriss v. Winter [2] and by the observations made upon the Prison Regulations by Goddard L.J. in De Laessoe v. Anderson [3] in the second column. On that ground I think that the custody in which the prisoner remains is lawful.

(1908) 6 C.L.R. 38. 2. (1908) 6 C.L.R. 38. 3. (1930) 1 K.B. 243. 4. (1942) 59 T.L.R. 149, at p. 150.

But there is a further ground which would result in the refusal of this application even if the opposite view were adopted. The regulations of 1923 were repealed before a sufficient period had elapsed to justify the applicant's release from his sentence under the marks system on the basis that twenty years had been substituted for life imprisonment. They were repealed by the Prison Regulations 1940. The policy of those regulations was apparently to put prisoners under life imprisonment outside the marks system. In 1943 the policy was somewhat revised because in that year by an amendment of the regulations such prisoners were put under the marks system, but only for the purpose of enabling them to appeal to the Royal Prerogative. The Prison Regulations 1940 would operate in my opinion to remove the foundation of his claim to a legal right under the regulations of 1923 to be released at the end of the period of twenty years or that period reduced under the marks system.

But s. 17 of the Interpretation Act was relied upon as a provision which preserved his rights under the reg. of 1923 to release at the end of twenty years or twenty years reduced by the marks system. In my opinion that provision is inapplicable, not only because the regulations conferred no rights, but because at the date of the repeal in 1940 of the 1923 regulations he was in the position of a person who had not an accrued right. He had no accrued right to release, and his rights under the Prison Regulations 1923 were only accruing. I therefore think the application should be refused.

I agree that the application should be refused. I think that the first and main obstacle to the success of the application is that the sentence of imprisonment for life at the time when it was imposed cannot be interpreted as being a sentence of twenty years' imprisonment. Regulation 155 does not, in my opinion, on its true construction, alter or purport to alter a sentence of imprisonment for life to twenty years. At the time when the application was made for a writ of habeas corpus the applicant was under sentence of imprisonment for life, and therefore he had no legal right to be released. But in addition to that, having regard to the authorities which have been cited, the applicant has no legal right to have awarded to him what are described in the regulations as marks for the purpose of calculating the duration of his sentence or for the purpose of effecting any legal reduction in the term of his sentence, whether that sentence is to be considered as one for life or, if my construction of reg. 155 is wrong, for twenty years. I agree with what has been said by the Chief Justice and my brother Dixon, and consequently I would refuse the application.

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Judgment (17 paragraphs)

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