The High Court has ruled that Ireland’s murder sentencing regime breaches the constitutional guarantee of equality because a juvenile offender who turns 18 before sentencing may face a mandatory life sentence, while a similarly situated offender sentenced as a child may receive a discretionary sentence.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered the judgment on 2 September 2024 in two judicial review cases. The applicants, identified in the judgment as M & A, had been charged with murder over alleged events in Blanchardstown, County Dublin, on 24 December 2023. Both were under 18 at the time of the alleged offence but had since turned 18 and would be tried as adults. The judge stressed that they remain presumed innocent and that the reviews addressed only what might follow if either were convicted after a contested trial.
Under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1990, a person convicted of murder must receive a life sentence. The judgment explains that section 156 of the Children Act 2001 prevents a court from imprisoning a child, so a juvenile offender convicted and sentenced before turning 18 is instead sentenced under the Act’s principles. Those principles allow the offender’s age and maturity at the time of the offence to be considered in deciding the penalty.
For an offender who has turned 18 before trial and sentencing, the judge said, the sentencing court has no discretion to impose a lesser sentence for murder, even with regard to the person’s age and maturity when the offence was committed. The judge distinguished those factors from safeguards focused on the needs of someone still a child, such as education and family relationships.
The State respondents submitted that the court should also consider that an offender sentenced as an adult is no longer in the same position as a child being sentenced. The judge accepted that this could justify not applying protections directed to a person’s present circumstances as a child, but said it did not justify withholding consideration of the offender’s age and maturity when the offence occurred. The judgment said current age does not alter moral culpability at the time of the offence.
The court concluded that the distinction between juvenile offenders based solely on whether they had turned 18 by sentencing was not rationally connected to the purpose of recognising potentially lower culpability for offending as a child. It held that the murder sentencing regime, as then formulated, did not comply with Article 40.1 of the Constitution.
The court did not determine the form of relief. The cases were listed for mention on 9 October 2024 to fix a date for submissions on that issue. The ruling concerned the constitutional challenge; it did not determine either applicant’s criminal charge.