## Facts

- Ragho Prasad (also reported as Ragho Prasad, s/o Ram Autar Rao) was tried in the Supreme Court of Fiji for the murder of his father.
- The trial was conducted with assessors, a procedure under which assessors hear the evidence and give the judge their opinions on the verdict, but the trial judge is the ultimate decision-maker on guilt.
- After the evidence and closing addresses, the trial judge summed up the case to the assessors, directing them on the relevant law and reviewing the evidence before taking their opinions.
- Prasad was convicted of murder.
- Prasad appealed to the Fiji Court of Appeal, contending that the trial judge’s summing-up to the assessors was erroneous and that the conviction should not stand.
- The Fiji Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld the conviction.
- Prasad then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, arguing again that the summing-up was defective and also seeking to advance a new argument that had not been distinctly taken in the Fiji courts.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial judge’s summing-up to the assessors contained errors or omissions serious enough to make the murder conviction unsafe and require it to be quashed.
2. Whether the Privy Council should permit Prasad to argue a new point on final appeal that had not been distinctly raised at trial or before the Fiji Court of Appeal.

## Decision

- The Privy Council dismissed the appeal and affirmed Prasad’s conviction for murder.
- The Board concluded that the complaints about the summing-up did not disclose a misdirection or unfairness that resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
- The Board declined to entertain the new point raised for the first time before the Privy Council.

## Legal Principles

- In reviewing a summing-up, an appellate court considers the charge as a whole; a conviction will not be set aside for imperfections that do not create a real risk of miscarriage of justice.
- In a judge-and-assessors trial, assessors’ opinions are advisory only; appellate intervention based on directions to assessors is warranted only where the summing-up reveals a material error affecting the safety of the judge’s ultimate determination.
- A final appellate court will generally not allow a party to raise a new ground for the first time on final appeal, especially where the point was not distinctly taken below and there is no clear showing that refusing it would result in substantial injustice.

## Conclusion

The Privy Council upheld Prasad’s Fiji murder conviction because the alleged defects in the judge’s summing-up to the assessors did not amount to a material misdirection or unfairness causing a miscarriage of justice, and it refused to consider a fresh argument advanced for the first time at the final appellate stage.


Ragho Prasad v. The Queen, [1981] 1 WLR 469 (1980)