The Supreme Court has ruled that it had no jurisdiction to hear Liam Campbell’s appeal on a legal question concerning the Real IRA, after the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction and ordered a retrial.
The judgment, delivered by Chief Justice Keane on 23 April 2004, addressed only whether Campbell could appeal to the Supreme Court under section 29 of the Courts of Justice Act 1924. It did not decide whether the 1939 Unlawful Organisation (Suppression) Order applied to an organisation established around 1997.
Campbell had been convicted in the Special Criminal Court of membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, also known as Óglaigh na hÉireann or the IRA. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with the final three months suspended. The source does not state the date of that conviction or sentence.
The Court of Criminal Appeal later allowed his appeal on a separate ground concerning cross-examination, quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial. It rejected his argument that the “Real I.R.A.” was not covered by the suppression order. The appeal court then certified that the question about the order’s application to an organisation formed around 1997 involved a point of exceptional public importance and that an appeal to the Supreme Court was desirable in the public interest.
The prosecution objected that section 29 did not permit Campbell to appeal because the decision under appeal had quashed his conviction and granted him a retrial. Campbell’s counsel argued that it would be unjust to require him to face retrial while the law remained uncertain.
The Supreme Court held that section 29 allowed an appeal from the Court of Criminal Appeal’s determination, meaning the result of that appeal. Here, that result was in Campbell’s favour: his conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered. The Supreme Court said that deciding the certified question in those circumstances would amount to a consultative opinion, a jurisdiction it did not have.
The court therefore resolved the preliminary jurisdiction issue against Campbell. The judgment did not overturn the retrial order or answer the certified question about the suppression order. The source says the retrial was listed for May 2004 and that Campbell also faced a separate membership charge listed for trial in July 2004; it does not report what happened in either proceeding.