Abuse Of Process In Private Criminal Prosecutions

Introduction

The Supreme Court recently gave its judgment in an appeal against a first-instance decision in which the respondents had faced criminal charges for issuing cheques which had failed to clear.⁽¹⁾ During the lower court hearing, the director of the complainant company, which was the appellant in the subsequent appeal, stated that the cheques had been issued by the defendants – the respondents in the appeal – to settle civil actions and other private criminal cases regarding unpaid cheques.

After the prosecution's evidence had been given, at the stage of submission of no case to answer, the first-instance court examined the matter of abuse of process on its own initiative and without the matter being raised by the defendants. From the testimony before it, the court concluded that the complainants had "used the criminal justice system with ulterior motives, in order to receive the owed amount and not to punish the offenders". Although bringing a criminal