The Court of Appeal has allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal and set aside a High Court order quashing a committal warrant issued after Ignatius Forde failed to pay a fine. The court held that a Courts Service official who drew up the warrant was giving effect to the Circuit Court’s sentence, rather than making the decision to imprison him.
Forde had pleaded guilty to attempted evasion of Excise Duty under the Finance Act 2001. On 19 March 2013, the Circuit Court imposed a fine of €79,054.63, reduced by the maximum permitted 50% to €39,527.32. It allowed 12 months for payment and ordered one year’s imprisonment in default. The sentence was not appealed, and no part of the fine was paid within the year.
A warrant was issued on 8 September 2014. Forde was arrested on 5 March 2015 and taken to the Midlands Prison. The High Court later quashed the warrant, finding it had been issued ultra vires by a Courts Service employee. Forde had also sought to have the matter re-entered before the sentencing judge, who said the court was functus officio and lacked jurisdiction to deal with it.
On appeal, the Director argued that the Circuit Court had already decided in 2013 that imprisonment would follow non-payment, so no further judicial decision was needed. Forde argued that issuing the warrant involved a decision-making process beyond carrying out the court’s order and that a judicial intervention was required to activate imprisonment.
The Court of Appeal accepted the Director’s position. It said the Circuit Court judge had clearly ordered imprisonment if the fine was not paid within the time allowed; the Courts Service official’s role was to draw up the warrant to give effect to that order. The court also found the warrant sufficiently set out the issuing court, conviction, sentence, default provision and non-payment. It treated the warrant’s reference to “Excuse Duty” as an obvious typographical error.
The court noted that a case involving a disputed default or an unexpected event making payment impossible could raise different questions. Forde had not offered an explanation or justification for non-payment, and the court expressly declined to decide what procedure should apply in such a case. Its ruling allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court order; it did not determine those hypothetical issues.