Supreme Court dismisses appeals against police remand orders, upholding detention based on unchallenged testimony of seditious documents.

[*993] 1973 AUGUST. 24

(TRIANTAFYLLIDES, P., HADJIANASTASSIOU, MALACHTOS, JJ.)

APPELIATE JURISDICTION

Panicos Tsikkinis and Another,

Appellants,

V.

The Police,

Respondents.

(Civil Appeal Nos .3498, 9496).

Criminal Procedure - Remand order - Law applicable - Criminal Procedure Law, Cap. 153, s. 24 - Article 11 paragraphs 1, 2(c) and 6 of the Constitution - Testimony given by police in support of the application for remand - Not challenged by cross-examination - Sufficient material before Court below justifying a reasonable suspicion that appellants committed offences under investigation.

E. Markidou, (Mrs.) with C. Tsirides, for the Appellants.

C. Kypridemos, Counsel of the Republic, for the Respondents.

JUDGMENT

The judgment of the Court was delivered by:-

TRIANTAETLLIDES P.: The two appellants complain [*994] against orders remanding them in police custody for eight days as from the 18th August, 1973, in relation to police investigations into the commission, allegedly by the appellants, of the offences of conspiracy to use armed force against the Government of the Republic and of possession of documents having a seditious intention.

Counsel for the appellants has argued that the District Judge who ordered, as above, the detention of the appellants did not exercise properly his relevant discretion inasmuch as there was not placed before him material sufficient for justifying a reasonable suspicion that the appellants had committed the offences in question.

In the judgment in the case of Tsirides v. The Police (Criminal Appeal No, 3487, not reported yet)[i] the law applicable to the making of remand orders was expounded (and see, also, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Neumeister case, 1968 Yearbook of the European Convention on Human Rights 812, at p.814) and it was stressed that cases of this nature, involving deprivation of personal liberty, have to be approached with all possible care. We have, therefore, not only given priority to the present appeals - by fixing them for hearing within three days after their filing - but we have, also, anxiously considered our decision regarding their outcome.

Bearing in mind, inter alia, that the testimony given by a police officer in support of the applications for the remand orders was not challenged by cross-examination, and, especially, that it is a part of such testimony [*995] that the police have evidence that at some stage certain seditious documents were in the possession of the appellants, we have reached the conclusion that there existed before the District Judge material sufficient for justifying a reasonable suspicion that the appellants committed the offence of possession of documents having a seditious intention and, therefore, we are not prepared to interfere with the appealed from remand orders which were made, in our view, in the course of a proper exercise of his relevant discretionary powers.

Once, in view of the foregoing, these appeals have to be dismissed in so far as is concerned the remanding in custody for eight days of the appellants on reasonable suspicion of having committed the offence of possession of documents having a seditious intention, it would serve no purpose to examine - in the light of the Tsirides case or otherwise - whether there was material before the District Judge justifying their remand in custody, for the same period of eight days, on reasonable suspicion of having committed the offence of conspiracy to use armed force against the Government of the Republic; and we leave this question open.

Appeals dismissed.

Now reported in this Part at p.984 ante