## Facts

- Jamaica’s Parliament enacted the Gun Court Act 1974 as ordinary legislation in response to increased gun crime.
- The Act created a specialized Gun Court with three divisions: a Resident Magistrates’ Division, a Circuit Court Division (presided over by a Supreme Court judge), and a Full Court Division (three resident magistrates sitting together).
- The Act required Gun Court trials to be held in camera.
- For specified firearm offences, the Act imposed mandatory detention at hard labour “during the Governor-General’s pleasure,” with release dependent on the Governor-General acting on the advice of a Review Board largely composed of non-judicial members.
- The appellants were convicted in the Resident Magistrates’ Division of offences attracting the mandatory detention regime and challenged the Act’s constitutionality under the Constitution of Jamaica.
- The appeals were consolidated, including an appeal involving the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to Jackson’s conviction and sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether creating a Full Court Division staffed by resident magistrates but exercising powers closely comparable to a Supreme Court judge was inconsistent with the constitutional scheme for the judicature and judicial independence.
2. Whether requiring all Gun Court trials to be held in camera violated constitutional guarantees relating to public hearings.
3. Whether prescribing detention “during the Governor-General’s pleasure,” with the duration effectively controlled by the executive through a Review Board, impermissibly transferred a judicial sentencing function to the executive.
4. If any provisions were unconstitutional, whether they were severable so the remainder of the Act could remain operative.

## Decision

- The Privy Council allowed the appeals in part.
- Provisions establishing and empowering the Gun Court Full Court Division were unconstitutional and void to the extent of inconsistency.
- Provisions mandating detention during the Governor-General’s pleasure, with release dependent on executive decision-making informed by a Review Board, were unconstitutional as an impermissible transfer of sentencing discretion from the judiciary to the executive.
- Provisions creating the Resident Magistrates’ Division and Circuit Court Division were valid insofar as they extended existing judicial jurisdiction rather than restructuring the constitutionally protected hierarchy.
- The in camera trial requirement was upheld as constitutionally permissible.
- The unconstitutional provisions were severable; the rest of the statutory scheme could stand.

## Legal Principles

- The constitution is supreme; ordinary legislation inconsistent with it is void to the extent of inconsistency.
- Separation of powers may be implied from constitutional structure, including protections for the judicature and judicial independence.
- Parliament may prescribe offences and types or ranges of penalties, but determining the severity or duration of punishment in individual cases is a core judicial function that cannot be assigned to executive bodies without constitutional change.
- A legislature cannot create a court exercising substantially higher-court powers while staffing it with officers who lack constitutionally required safeguards associated with that level of judicial authority.
- Where invalid provisions can be removed without defeating the operative remainder of a statute, severability permits the valid parts to continue in force.

## Conclusion

The Privy Council upheld Jamaica’s ability to establish specialized criminal procedures such as in camera trials and jurisdictional arrangements, but struck down efforts to reallocate high-level adjudicative authority to magistrates lacking constitutional protections and to shift sentencing control from the judiciary to the executive through detention “at pleasure” administered via a non-judicial review mechanism.


Hinds v. The Queen, [1977] A.C. 195 (P.C. 1977)