The Supreme Court dismissed Jonathan Gormley’s appeal against the High Court’s refusal to quash a District Court order sending him forward for trial on indictment on charges of assault causing harm and criminal damage.
The appeal concerned the District Court’s authority to send the charges forward after proceedings had initially been treated as suitable for summary trial. The judgment says a Garda mistakenly told the District Court that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had consented to summary disposal. In fact, the DPP had not yet given any direction. After an alleged injured party said she did not wish to give evidence, the DPP directed on 17 February 2005 that the case proceed on indictment.
The Supreme Court held that the mistake did not change the result. The summary proceedings had not really got under way, and the District Court judge was entitled to stop them and take the procedural steps needed for trial on indictment once the DPP directed that course. The Court said the judge would also have been right to do so if told that the DPP had never consented to summary trial.
The Court distinguished the case from Reade v Judge Reilly, where the DPP had directed summary trial and the District Court judge later concluded the charges were non-minor. In Reade, the Supreme Court had held that the District Court lacked statutory power to send the accused forward for trial in those circumstances. Here, the DPP had directed trial on indictment, and the Supreme Court read section 4A of the Criminal Procedure Act 1967 as requiring the District Court to send an accused forward where charged with an indictable offence, unless one of the statutory exceptions applied.
The Court’s ruling was limited to the circumstances before it. It noted that a different issue might arise if a summary hearing were completed or nearly completed, including whether a retrial on indictment could be oppressive. It also said sending a case forward would not be proper in the face of unfair procedures, oppression or abuse of process. None of those concerns applied on the facts of this appeal, and the appeal was dismissed.