The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996 and affirmed High Court orders freezing £300,000 which had been found to represent the proceeds of crime.
The ruling arose from two sets of proceedings. In the first, a senior Garda officer sought orders under the 1996 Act over £300,000 held through a solicitor's client accounts and associated with defendants identified as G.M., P.B. and a company. The money was held partly in Dún Laoghaire and partly in London before being transferred to a court-appointed receiver.
The High Court had found that the £300,000 constituted, directly or indirectly, the proceeds of crime. It also rejected the explanation advanced by P.B. for the source of the funds. Those factual findings were not challenged before the Supreme Court.
The appellants instead attacked the legal basis of the freezing and receivership orders and argued that the 1996 Act was unconstitutional. Among other points, they claimed the legislation was effectively criminal law without safeguards such as the presumption of innocence, proof beyond reasonable doubt and jury trial.
Chief Justice Keane, delivering the court's judgment, rejected those arguments. The court held that proceedings under the Act are civil in nature. The statutory orders are directed at property shown on the balance of probabilities to be proceeds of crime, rather than at convicting or punishing a person for a criminal offence.
The court also rejected challenges concerning hearsay evidence, burden of proof, property rights, self-incrimination, retrospective application and the ability to make orders affecting property outside Ireland where a person within the jurisdiction controls it.
In the separate proceedings brought by John Gilligan, the Supreme Court likewise rejected the constitutional challenge.
Both appeals were dismissed and the High Court orders affirmed. The court stressed, however, that its ruling addressed only the constitutional arguments actually raised and did not decide hypothetical issues that might arise under the legislation in future cases.