The Supreme Court dismissed the Governor of Portlaoise Prison’s appeals over warrants used to detain three men transferred from England to Ireland to serve prison sentences. In a judgment dated 12 July 2016, Justice John MacMenamin concluded that the warrants were void from the outset because the sentences had not been adapted as required before transfer.
The men had pleaded guilty in an English court in 2002 to terrorist offences. Their 30-year sentences were reduced on appeal to 28 years and backdated to their arrests in Slovakia on 5 July 2001. They were transferred to Ireland in September 2006 under the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Acts.
In 2014, the High Court held that their detention was not in accordance with law and directed their release. The Governor appealed. The men also cross-appealed, arguing that the High Court should have ordered their release after its first judgment. The Supreme Court rejected that argument: it said the High Court judge was entitled to hold a further hearing before reaching a final conclusion on the legality of detention.
The central issue was whether the warrants could be changed after the transfer to address the sentences’ incompatibility with Irish law. Justice MacMenamin distinguished adaptation of a sentence under section 7 from variation of a warrant under section 9. He held that adaptation had to take place before a prisoner was brought into Ireland. Section 9 allowed changes to warrant provisions, but did not allow the court to adapt the underlying sentence after transfer.
The judgment identified a defect in the warrants’ commencement date: they recorded 7 May 2002, rather than the 5 July 2001 date to which the English sentences had been backdated. The court said that error could, in principle, have been corrected if the warrants were otherwise valid. But it found more fundamental defects: the recorded 28-year sentences exceeded the relevant maximum under Irish law without prior adaptation, and the warrants did not clearly establish the nature or duration of the sentences to be served.
The court also rejected the Governor’s argument that the men’s consent to transfer or acceptance of Irish remission terms prevented them from challenging their detention. It dismissed the appeals, leaving the High Court’s release directions in place. The judgment made no observation on any future application the State might make concerning the men.