Criminal
Offences Against the Person Act with common law procedure
Criminal law rests on the Offences Against the Person Act, the Larceny Act and the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, supplemented by common law offences. Indictable matters are tried in the High Court before a judge and jury; summary matters go to the Magistrate's Court. Prosecutions are conducted by the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose independence is protected by the Constitution.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — High Court for indictable trials, Magistrate's Court for summary matters
- Deadline — Charge or release: a person arrested must be brought before a court without undue delay
- Deadline — Summary offence: complaint generally within six months of the offence
- Deadline — Appeal against conviction: 21 days from sentence
Governing law
- Offences Against the Person Act
- Criminal Law and Procedure Act
- Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act
- Magistrate's Code of Procedure Act
In practice
Preliminary inquiries before a magistrate have been progressively replaced by paper committals to reduce delay, so the committal stage is now largely documentary. Dominica retains capital punishment on the statute book for murder, but no execution has been carried out for decades, and following Privy Council and now CCJ authority the mandatory death sentence has been read down so that sentencing discretion must be exercised.