Mandatory minimum sentences for possessing blades in public are not an unconstitutional breach of rights and freedoms – but judges must still assess whether they are proportional to the gravity of each individual crime.

That recent landmark ruling of the Court of Appeal means convict Jahki Dillas is heading back to the Supreme Court to have his five-year sentence re-assessed.

Dillas, along with fellow appellant David Jahwell Cox, asked the Court of Appeal last month to declare the mandatory jail term for possessing a blade in public both unlawful and unconstitutional.

The bladed article provisions, introduced in 2005, mean a sentence of three to five years at Magistrates' Court, plus a potential $5,000 fine. The punishment jumps to a five- to seven-year sentence at Supreme Court and a fine up to $10,000.

It was correctly reported in The Royal Gazette earlier this week that the Court of Appeal refused to brand the sentences unconstitutional and dismissed the appeal on that point.

However, the report did not make it clear that the appeals judges added that the sentences must also be proportional to the crime. Therefore they did allow the appeals against the sentence to that extent.

"The graveman for the submissions for the appellants is that a fixed minimum term sentence, without regards to the circumstances of the individual case, is contrary to the underlying principles that 'the punishment should fit the crime'," they observed.

In the case of Cox, jailed for three years by a Magistrate for taking a machete into a crowded bar at Devonshire Recreation Club in July 2006, the sentence was found to be proportionate.

However, in the case of Dillas, sentenced to five years by a judge after he admitted getting into a fight on Reid Street and using a machete while attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to another man, they upheld his appeal.

Although they did not comment on the individual facts of that case, they remitted Dillas back to the Supreme Court for sentence.

The ruling – a first since the bladed article law was passed – may spark similar appeals by other convicts.