Section 212:

212. Meaning of “imprisonment for life” – Abolition of death penalty – Offence of manslaughter—In February 1986, the respondent was convicted of manslaughter for an offence committed in June 1983. He was sentenced to penal servitude tor life. At that time the maximum term for which punishment could be imposed, where the term had not been specified in the law, was 20 years. This provision was amended in March 1986 to read 30 years, instead of 20. In 2002, the respondent had applied for an order to declare that his sentence of “penal servitude for life” should be for 20 years and the Court had granted the application. In the light of the decision in De Boucherville (2006), the State applied to have Jeetun’s 2002 order stayed and his term of penal servitude changed from 20 years to “penal servitude for life”. HELD the Jeetun order had neither been recalled nor been the object of a new trial or appeal and could not now be stayed, in the light of the principle of finality in legal proceedings. Moreover, a litigant could not be deprived of the benefit of a judgment which he has lawfully obtained. The decision on the life sentence of De Boucherville could only apply prospectively, assuming it was correct in its interpretation of the law regarding the sentence imposed for manslaughter. The enactments which abolished death penalty and which provided for maximum terms of penal servitude had, by failing to deal with the lesser offence of manslaughter, created an anomaly. It could not have been the intention of the legislature to punish those convicted of manslaughter in the same way as those convicted of murder. The application was set aside and the order to stay the order granted in Jeetun in 2002 was discharged. State of Mauritius v Jeetun (2006).