The Supreme Court has dismissed Frank Agrama’s appeal against the Minister for Justice’s decision to appoint a District Court judge to receive evidence sought by Italian authorities under a mutual assistance request.
The appeal concerned whether the Minister acted unlawfully by failing to consider representations Agrama made in 2007 about an earlier Italian request, and by allegedly adopting a fixed policy against investigating such complaints. The Court said the onus was on Agrama to establish that the Minister had fettered his discretion. It found no evidence supporting that allegation and concluded that the evidence established that the Minister had considered the objections.
The requests related to an Italian investigation into alleged fraud and money laundering connected with the purchase of television broadcasting rights. The allegations included that intermediary companies bought rights and resold them to Mediaset companies at inflated prices. These were allegations described in the requests, not findings by the Irish Court.
Agrama’s lawyers argued that inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the first request amounted to an abuse of process and should have led the Minister to investigate or refuse assistance. The Court held that the specific objections did not challenge the statutory conditions for assistance or establish a compelling reason to refuse it. It said that errors in describing the investigation, even if established, would not by themselves amount to the kind of abuse that required the Minister to investigate or refuse the request. The Court also considered a US court order concerning searches and seized material, but found that the circumstances described did not show an abuse of the Irish evidence-gathering process.
The Court recognised that the Minister’s discretion under section 51 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 was not a rubber stamp: refusal could be justified in rare cases, including for compelling reasons such as national security, a breach of a fundamental principle of justice or abuse of process. It said any representations had to be considered in light of urgency, the limited scope for inquiry and the matters the Minister was required to assess.
Before the appeal hearing, Agrama sought permission to raise new grounds based on later developments in Italy, including the status and purpose of the evidence request. The Court refused that application. It said those matters arose after the 2008 decision under challenge, had not been determined by the High Court, and would require consideration of disputed evidence. The Court dismissed the appeal. It did not decide the proposed new grounds on their merits.