The Supreme Court has dismissed Michael Anthony Balmer’s appeal against an order for his surrender to the United Kingdom under a European Arrest Warrant, holding that the UK life sentence regime did not require surrender to be refused under the Irish Constitution.
The judgment, delivered by O’Donnell J. on 12 May 2016, concerned Mr Balmer’s recall to custody after his release on licence. He had been convicted of murder in England in 1984 and sentenced to life imprisonment. His minimum term, described in the judgment as a tariff, expired in 1999. He was released on licence in 2011, subject to conditions, and his licence was revoked in March 2012. The recall notice gave only two stated grounds: “allegedly committed a further offence” and “poor behaviour”. The judgment does not identify the alleged further offence or explain the poor behaviour.
Mr Balmer argued that surrender would return him to detention that was preventive because the tariff period had expired, contrary to the Constitution. He also argued that the UK process did not provide a hearing before licence revocation and recall. The High Court rejected his objections and ordered surrender. The Court of Appeal upheld that decision by a majority; Hogan J. dissented. The Supreme Court considered the certified appeal.
O’Donnell J. said the UK sentence remained a life sentence, while “tariff” and “punitive element” were descriptive terms rather than statutory parts of it. He considered that a similar UK regime would not be permissible if introduced in Ireland, but said that did not itself establish the “egregious” or fundamental defect required to refuse surrender under section 37(1)(b) of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. He distinguished the UK regime from the discredited indeterminate sentence for public protection regime considered in earlier litigation.
The Court said this judgment addressed the principle that the UK tariff system required refusal of surrender; exceptional cases might still require consideration of the length of a sentence served. It also noted that the recall circumstances were described only in the notice’s sparse terms, and said more information could be provided to a court considering surrender.
On the procedural objection, the Court did not set out a general rule about hearings before recall. It held that, in this case, the provision of information and the ability to review or appeal the recall decision were sufficient to meet any fair procedures requirement under the Constitution or the European Convention on Human Rights. O’Donnell J. concluded that it was unnecessary to decide the certified issues in the abstract and dismissed the appeal.