Ngatayi v The Queen [1980] HCA 18

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. Gibbs, Mason, Murphy and Wilson JJ. Ngatayi v The Queen [1980] HCA 18

ORDER Application for special leave to appeal granted. Appeal dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

July 3 Barwick C.J.

In my opinion, special leave to appeal should be refused. The application for leave seems to me to have been based on a misconception of the purpose of s. 631 of the Criminal Code W.A., and of comparable provisions in the laws of other States. Such provisions are not intended to ensure that an accused person understands the law applicable in his trial. They are designed to ensure that an accused has the capacity to understand the nature of the trial proceedings to which he or she would be subject if a plea were made or entered. There was in this case no material, in my opinion, upon which it could be concluded that the applicant lacked that capacity. The most that could be said (although, in truth, there was no evidence even to that effect) was that he did not understand that an intent to kill was an indispensable element of the crime with which he was charged. But granted for the sake of argument that this was so, an incapacity to understand the nature of the proceedings was not thereby evidenced. The trial judge, rightly in my opinion, refused to take the opinion of a jury on the question of the applicant's capacity to understand the nature of the proceedings to be had on his trial.

However, it should be added that, in any case, a plea of not guilty was entered and in the trial which followed the applicant had the full benefit of placing on the Crown the onus of establishing his intent to kill. The applicant gave evidence and, indeed, gave his reason for his admitted attack on the deceased. His substantial defence was drunkenness to the point where he could form no intent. The jury, under judicial direction to which no exception has been taken, found him guilty as charged. There is no material on which it could be said that he was not fairly and properly tried.