The High Court has refused an application by a prisoner who argued that uncertainty in his sentence made his detention unlawful. Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh found no ambiguity in the sentence and no flaw in the warrant detaining him, and held that he was in lawful custody.
The application was made under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution, which allows a person to seek an inquiry into the lawfulness of detention. The applicant had applied from prison without legal advice. The court had already declined to inquire into complaints about the adequacy of his trial representation, saying those issues belonged in another forum.
The applicant had been convicted by a jury of one count of rape and was serving a sentence imposed by the Central Criminal Court. The sentencing judge set a six-year term, suspended the final year subject to a peace bond, and offered suspension of a further year if the applicant took part in the Better Lives programme for sex offenders while in prison. The judge said access to programmes depended on the prison governor. The applicant maintained his innocence and was pursuing an appeal against conviction, but had not appealed his sentence.
The applicant argued that the sentence’s duration was uncertain and that this made his committal warrant invalid. He said the sentence, with full remission, could end on either 22 March or 22 December 2016. The respondent’s counsel argued that a warrant need not state precise release dates and that complaints about sentence should be pursued on appeal.
The judge accepted that a sentence dependent on impossible, unattainable or illegal conditions might be unlawful. But he found the programme condition lawful and the sentence clear: participation, and the reduction in custody that could follow, depended on the applicant taking part in rehabilitation. The judge said the applicant understood that participation required him to accept his guilt. The applicant told the court he would not take part even if assured that doing so would not affect his appeal.
The judgment did not decide whether requiring an admission of guilt for programme participation could interfere with a person’s right to appeal against conviction. The judge said that question was moot in this case because the applicant would not participate regardless.
The court held that sentence-related complaints should properly have been raised by appeal and refused the Article 40 application. It did not overturn the conviction or decide the pending appeal against it.