The Supreme Court ruled that Gardaí must comply with section 30(3A) of the Offences Against the State Act 1939 when they extend a person’s detention to investigate an offence other than the one underlying the original arrest. The member in charge must have reasonable grounds for believing continued detention is necessary to investigate that other offence.
The ruling came in response to a question of law referred by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 34 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1967, following the respondent’s acquittal by the Special Criminal Court. The Supreme Court answered that the Special Criminal Court had correctly interpreted section 30(3A). The reference was without prejudice to the acquittal; the Supreme Court did not overturn it.
The respondent, identified in the judgment only as M.C., had been arrested in September 2010 on suspicion of membership of an unlawful organisation. After a search of the respondent’s home, Gardaí found an electric grinder and ammonium nitrate. At Monaghan Garda Station, the respondent was first questioned about the suspected membership offence and later about possession of explosives. The respondent then made a statement accepting responsibility for the grinder and ammonium nitrate. That statement was the prosecution’s only evidence at the trial on a charge of unlawful possession of an explosive substance.
The Special Criminal Court found that the respondent’s detention for questioning about explosives was unlawful because the requirements of section 30(3A) had not been met. It ruled the confession inadmissible and directed an acquittal. The DPP argued on referral that section 30(3A) applied only if suspicion of the original offence had ended, or detention was no longer needed to investigate it. The respondent argued that the provision applied whenever Gardaí questioned a detained person about another offence.
Delivering the Supreme Court judgment, Mr Justice Fennelly said the section required the member in charge’s opinion in every situation it covered. The original suspicion could persist, but that did not remove the statutory requirement when detention was extended to investigate another offence. He said the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision in DPP v Howley concerned the law before section 30(3A) was enacted and did not determine how the amended section should be read. The Court also rejected the argument that detention provisions in other statutes should be read into section 30.