The High Court dismissed an application for habeas corpus by a prisoner who argued that his detention at Cork Prison was unlawful because the prison had no warrant to hold him after a transfer from Portlaoise Prison.
In a judgment delivered on 24 October 2011, Ms Justice Irvinie said the applicant’s complaint concerned a 56-day transfer to Cork as punishment for something he had done while in Portlaoise. He did not dispute that a valid warrant committed him to prison in Portlaoise following his convictions.
The judgment records that documents submitted for the applicant indicated he had been sentenced to life imprisonment on two murder counts, on 15 October 2007 and 8 July 2009. The judge said the applicant’s affidavit made it “highly likely” that a warrant had issued for his detention at Portlaoise.
The court considered section 17 of the Criminal Justice Administration Act 1914. It provides for prisoners to be committed to prisons as directed by the relevant authority and allows them to be moved to another prison during their sentence. The judge held that a governor did not need to obtain or produce a separate warrant for such a transfer: an order under section 17 is the authority for the receiving prison governor to become the prisoner’s custodian.
The judge said she had no reason to believe the applicant had not been transferred appropriately under that provision and dismissed the application. The judgment did not find that a transfer order had been produced in this case; it concluded that a separate warrant was not required and that there was no reason to doubt the transfer was made appropriately.