The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge by Zbigniew Zadecki to two District Court convictions for possessing stolen property. The court held that the evidence was weak but not entirely absent, and that judicial review was not the route to revisit the convictions where an appeal to the Circuit Court was available.
The case concerned a personal public service (PPS) card and a Leap public transport card found on Mr Zadecki when he was searched in April 2019. The cards were in other people’s names. He said they belonged to a friend but could not name that person.
At the end of the prosecution case, Mr Zadecki’s solicitor sought a directed acquittal, arguing there was no evidence that the cards were stolen. The prosecuting garda said she accepted the submission concerning the two possession charges. The District Court judge refused the application, reasoning that the evidence gave Mr Zadecki a case to answer. Mr Zadecki gave no evidence. The judge later convicted him, saying the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The High Court considered whether the alleged lack of evidence meant the District Court judge had acted beyond his jurisdiction. Justice Siobhán Phelan said the prosecution had to prove that the cards were stolen, but that this could be established by circumstantial evidence and did not always require testimony from their owners. The evidence here was limited to the cards being in other people’s names and Mr Zadecki’s inability to identify the friend he said had given them to him. The judge described it as weak, but said the circumstances were suspicious and constituted some evidence.
The court also rejected the argument that the District Court judge had entered the arena by refusing the directed acquittal after the garda accepted the solicitor’s submission. Justice Phelan found that the garda had not expressly consented to an acquittal or withdrawn the charges. The judge therefore still had to decide the application and could reject a legal submission he considered wrong, even if both sides supported it.
A challenge based on inadequate reasons was not pressed in oral or written submissions, though it was not abandoned. The High Court found that the District Court judge’s exchanges about the evidence and his statement that the prosecution had proved its case sufficiently explained the decision.
Justice Phelan concluded that Mr Zadecki had not established an entitlement to judicial review relief and dismissed the proceedings. The ruling addressed only the judicial review application; it did not quash the convictions.