The High Court has refused to stop proceedings to enforce €1,700 in unpaid road traffic fines against John Stokes, despite finding that the state’s delays were “inordinate” and had not been adequately explained.
In a judgment delivered on 3 November 2023, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan refused the judicial review relief sought by Stokes. She said the District Court could still consider the delay when deciding whether to impose a sanction, and that it was premature for the High Court to intervene before that process concluded.
Stokes was convicted of eight road traffic offences in the District Court on 3 February 2016 and fined a total of €1,700, payable by 1 August that year. The offences included three instances of driving without insurance. He did not pay the fines or appeal them. Soon after the convictions, he began serving a prison sentence for an unrelated matter and remained in custody until April 2019.
A notice requiring him to attend court over the unpaid fines issued in January 2018. When he did not attend, an arrest warrant issued on 11 April 2018. Although he was still in custody when the warrant was issued, it was not executed until 25 February 2021, when he was brought before the District Court. The judgment records that he had provided his address on release and lived openly, without attempting to conceal his whereabouts or evade service.
The respondents accepted there had been delay. The Court Service attributed the time taken to issue the notice to introducing a new fines enforcement system. There was a dispute between the Court Service and An Garda Síochána over when the warrant was transmitted and received. Justice Phelan found that the Court Service and Gardaí had both contributed to the excessive delay, and that there was no adequate explanation for it.
Stokes argued that earlier enforcement might have allowed any imprisonment for non-payment to run alongside the unrelated sentence he was already serving. The judge said that outcome was speculative: under the 2014 Act, imprisonment is one possible measure of last resort, and the District Court may instead consider options including an attachment, recovery or community service order. It may also strike out the fines notice on delay grounds after considering the statutory measures.
The District Court had not yet assessed Stokes’s financial circumstances or decided what sanction, if any, was suitable. The High Court found that the lost chance to have a possible sentence run concurrently was not sufficient prejudice to stop enforcement, and that community service was not necessarily unfair or oppressive. It refused the relief sought, leaving the District Court to determine the next steps under the 2014 Act.