The High Court has rejected two prisoners’ challenges to Ireland’s mandatory life sentence for murder, finding that the sentence did not breach the Constitution or the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The joined cases were brought by Peter Whelan and Paul Lynch against the Minister for Justice, Ireland and the Attorney General. In a judgment delivered on 5 October 2007, Ms Justice Irvine dismissed their claims that section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1990 was unconstitutional and that the parole review process infringed their rights.
Whelan had pleaded guilty to murdering Nicola Sweeney and attempting to murder Sinead O’Leary. He received a mandatory life sentence for murder and a 15-year sentence for attempted murder, which the Court of Criminal Appeal later ordered to run before the life sentence. Lynch had pleaded guilty to murdering taxi driver William Campbell during a robbery and was serving a life sentence. After a Parole Board review, the Minister decided in July 2004 that Lynch would not be released and that another application would not be considered for three years.
The plaintiffs argued that requiring a life sentence for every murder left judges no room to account for individual circumstances and amounted to the legislature taking over a judicial sentencing function. They also argued that the Minister’s role in considering release was effectively a sentencing decision. Under the ECHR, they claimed the uncertainty about release was degrading treatment and that continued detention should be reviewed by an independent body through a public, adversarial hearing.
The defendants disputed those claims. They maintained that the life sentence was punitive, while decisions on commutation, remission and temporary release were executive functions. They also accepted that, if Article 5(4) required an independent review, the existing Minister and Parole Board process would not provide the required tribunal or hearing.
The court found that the Oireachtas could prescribe a fixed penalty and held that the plaintiffs had not shown the mandatory sentence to be unconstitutional. It rejected their proportionality challenge, citing the gravity of murder and the state’s interest in protecting life. It also held that the Minister’s powers to commute or remit sentences, or grant temporary release, did not amount to judicial sentencing.
On the ECHR claims, the judge concluded that Irish law treated the mandatory life sentence as punitive, rather than as a sentence with a separate preventative period. The court therefore found that the plaintiffs had no right under Article 5(4) to periodic independent review of continued detention, and rejected their claims under Articles 3, 5 and 6. The judgment did not order either prisoner’s release.