The High Court has refused an application to quash a 2014 order remanding a woman to Tallaght District Court for sentencing after a theft conviction. Mr Justice Eagar held that the order made by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 24 November 2014 was valid in the circumstances.
The judicial review challenge concerned only that 24 November order. The applicant had been convicted of theft under section 4 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. She was also subject to two suspended sentences: a three-month sentence imposed by the District Court in March 2014, and a separate six-month sentence imposed by the Circuit Court on appeal in April.
Under section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, as amended, a person convicted of an offence during a suspended sentence may be remanded to the court that imposed the suspended sentence. The applicant argued that her initial remand on 30 October 2014 was defective because it directed her to Circuit Court 16 the following day, when that courtroom was not sitting. She also challenged the handling of later listings. The judgment records that the 30 October remand and the 31 October and 10 November proceedings were not the orders under review.
On 31 October, the case was called in Circuit Court 5 while the applicant was absent. Judge Ring adjourned it to Court 16 on 10 November and directed the State to caution her about the next date. She was absent again on 10 November and was remanded to 24 November. Garda Jennifer Wallace had written to her by registered post and hand-delivered a notice on 13 November. The judgment says the applicant’s daughter told the Garda that the applicant was in Romania.
On 24 November, the applicant was again absent. The judge made no order on revocation of the Circuit Court suspended sentence and remanded her to Tallaght District Court for sentencing on the theft conviction. She was absent at the next listing on 25 November; the case was adjourned and later listed again in January 2015.
The applicant argued that the remand arrangements had not followed section 99 correctly. The Director of Public Prosecutions submitted that the legislation required a remand to a court, not a particular courtroom, and that Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was sitting on 31 October. The High Court agreed that section 99 referred to a sitting of a court rather than a courthouse. It also relied on Supreme Court authority that the power to impose sentence arose from the court’s jurisdiction over the offence and was not created by section 99(10A).
Justice Eagar refused certiorari in relation to the 24 November order, finding it valid in the circumstances. The judgment did not quash the earlier remand orders, which were not the subject of the application.