The High Court has refused Brian Doolan’s application for release from Midlands Prison, rejecting arguments based on both an alleged delay in a bail appeal and a challenge to the constitutionality of the Juries Act 1976.
Doolan was convicted of sexual offences in the Central Criminal Court on 5 March 2013. He received 12 years’ imprisonment with the final two years suspended, backdated to 27 January 2012.
He later sought to appeal his conviction and sentence. One proposed ground challenged the constitutionality of the Juries Act, but his notice of appeal was out of time and, according to the judgment, the Court of Appeal declined to extend time in November 2014. The High Court confirmed that no issue remained outstanding in that appeal.
Doolan separately began plenary proceedings against Ireland and the Attorney General in May 2015 challenging the Act. He then sought bail pending those proceedings. That application was refused by the President of the High Court on 26 August 2015.
In his habeas corpus application, Doolan claimed he had appealed the bail refusal and was being treated oppressively because no hearing date had been fixed. Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh checked with the Court of Appeal and found no record of such an appeal. He described that assertion as misleading.
The judge added that even if an appeal had been delayed unfairly, habeas corpus would not be the appropriate remedy. Doolan remained in post-conviction detention under an order valid on its face.
Doolan also argued that his detention was unlawful because the jury which convicted him had been selected under an allegedly unconstitutional statute. The court held that such a jurisdictional objection should have been raised during the prosecution or through a timely appeal.
Because the conviction had reached statutory finality, it could not now be reopened through Article 40 habeas corpus proceedings. The application for release was refused.