Appeal to Court of Appeal on basis of Manifest excess

The most common type of sentence appeal is that the sentence was manifestly excessive. That is that the penalty received was obviously too harsh. There may be a number of other appeal grounds or combinations of appeal grounds that can be submitted after carefully looking at all the papers in your case. Appeals are often expensive and time consuming and you should be clear that your lawyers understand what they are doing before you lodge an appeal.

Below is a definition of manifiest excess form case law. It is making the point that it is obvious if something is manifestly excessive. It is not something that needs to be argued much - it either is or it isn't.

"As all members of the High Court stated in Lowndes v. The Queen, the discretion which the law commits to sentencing judges is of vital importance in the administration of our system of criminal justice. For the appellate court to interfere the sentence must be "unreasonable or plainly unjust". Now, manifest excessiveness, like manifest inadequacy, is a conclusion.

It is a conclusion which does not depend upon attribution of identified specific error in the reasoning of the sentencing judge and it frequently does not admit of much amplification."