Criminal Law Tasks 2022

Running head: CRIMINAL LAW
CRIMINAL LAW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
CRIMINAL LAWStatutory interpretation is one of the important tasks that have been done by the court
of law while deciding various cases. In deciding the case, the interpreters often has to deal
with a provision or word, the meaning of which is not clearly stated in any part of the statute
and it is hard to give it a reasonable meaning. Therefore, the courts have to interpret
provisions of such statute or remove the ambiguity of such word by adopting different
interpretation rule. In this study the two cases emphasizes situation where the judges took
decision adopting different approaches of interpretation.
In the case of Paul Olaf Grajewski v Director of Public Prosecutions 1, the appellant
was the part of a protest. In showing his protest the appellant mounted up on a ship's loader
and through harness and rope, he fastened himself to the ship's loader and lowers his bodily
position in such a way that posed a risk of serious harm to him. Therefore, the operation of
the ship loader was immediately stopped due in order to maintain safety. The functioning of
the ship loader remains ceased for two hours that is the time it took for the man to be
removed from the loader. The appellant was convicted under section 195 (1)(a) of the Crimes
Act 1990 (NSW)2. The appellant was held guilty by the local court of Newcastle under
section 195(1) (a) of the Crime Act. Upon his appeal to the District Court, the District Court
referred the matter to the Appellate Court. The Appellate Court has struck down the order of
Conviction of the appellant as stated by the Local Court by stating that facts of the case
regarding damaging or destroying the property of another do not comply with the provision
of section 195 (1)(a) of the Crimes Act 1990 (NSW).
According to the provision of section 195 (1)(a), a person if destroying or cause
damage to the property of another is said to have committed a criminal offense and held
1 Paul Olaf Grajewski v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) [2019] HCA 8
2 Legislation.nsw.gov.au, 2020. NSW Legislation. [online] Legislation.nsw.gov.au. Available at:
<https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1900/40> [Accessed 15 April 2020].

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CRIMINAL LAW
liable for punishment3. The court in this held that there was no such proof that can prove that
the appellant's action actually caused any alteration in respect of the physical integrity of the
ship loader. The court further held that such function has stopped due to the safety concern
and not that the appellant’s conduct has brought some changes to the physical presence of the
ship or ship loader.
It can be said from the fact of the case that, the court while determining the question in the
issue that whether the hanging of the appellant from the loader has a proximate relationship
with the stoppage of the shipping function and can be considered as damage or alteration of
property envisaged under section 195, took the help of the principle of ‘rule of lenity’ in
order to interpret the non-application of the specific section of section 1954. The word
damages destruction and alteration have a wide-ranging meaning, however, applying the
literal construction theory to the fact of the case it can be said that definitely, the conduct of
the appellant does not sourced to any damage or alteration in the physical reliability of the
ship or ship loader5.
In the second case of R v A2, Magennis and Vaziri, two girls named C1 and C2
were subjected to a genital mutilation process as referred as ‘khatna’ under the Dawoodi
Bohra community, which involves the cut of the clitoris on a certain extent in order to make
them available to the culture after they have attained the age of seven. The surgery was
performed by a nurse called Kubra Magennis in the presence of the mother of the two girls
named A2. The whole process was completed by Kubra by using a metal instrument that can
be categorized as a scissor. The whole act was supported and committed in the presence of
another person named Shabbir Vaziri, who was the religious leader of the Dawoodi Bohra
3 Timebase.com.au, 2019. Timebase - Grajewski V DPP (NSW) [2019] HCA 8 - Meaning Of Damaging
Property. [online] Timebase.com.au. Available at: <https://www.timebase.com.au/news/2018/AT04858-
article.html> [Accessed 15 April 2020].
4 Rabb, Intisar. "The Appellate Rule of Lenity." Harv. L. Rev. F. 131 (2017): 179.
5 Ortner, Daniel. "The merciful corpus: The rule of lenity, ambiguity and corpus linguistics." BU Pub. Int. LJ 25
(2016): 101.

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Community. All of them were held guilty under the provision of section 45 of the Crimes Act
for committing the criminal offense of female mutilation. The defense claimed that the
whole process does not cause any injury to both of the girls and merely symbolic which was
rejected by the jury during trial6.
Although the medical report of the two girls stated that there was no such serious or
permanent injury, the judge took into consideration various factors that decided the offense of
the offenders. Firstly, the legal possession of the Crime Act 1990 clearly specifies that except
surgical operation, if a person excites or mutilates a female genital, the act is said to be an
offense under section 45 of the same Act7. Therefore, in this case, the absence of permanent
injury does not go to faded away from the presence of the criminal act committed by all the
offenders either by assisting or by performing such an act. Furthermore, A2 has breached the
trust of the girls which they have upon their mother. In the case of Shabbir Vaziri, the court
took into consideration the fact he took undue advantages of his position also gave a
misleading statement to the police. However, the court, in order to consider the humanitarian
approach such as considering the health and financial issues of the offenders states that, the
crime committed by the offenders is the way to serious that requires imprisonment even if in
the home detention.
Therefore, it can be said that the court, in this case, took the plain meaning approach which
states that a statue should be considered through its ordinary and reasonable meaning. In the
present case, while applying the provisions of Section 45 of the Crime Act, 1900, the court
held that whenever a person infibulates, excises or otherwise mutilates the of labia minora or
clitoris of another person is said to have committed an offense irrespective of the fact that
such injury has been imposed upon the whole or a part of the genital. Therefore, the court, in
6 R v A2, Magennis and Vaziri [2019] HCA 35
7 Legislation.nsw.gov.au, 2020. NSW Legislation. [online] Legislation.nsw.gov.au. Available at:
<https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1900/40> [Accessed 15 April 2020].