The High Court has directed the release of a 17-year-old from Oberstown after finding that the failure to apply sentence remission there breached the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law.
In a judgment delivered on 10 December 2013, Mr Justice Hogan ruled on an inquiry under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution brought by Sean Byrne, a minor suing through his next friend, Claire Byrne, against the Director of Oberstown School. The court found that Byrne’s continued detention after 26 November 2013 was not in accordance with law and directed his release from custody.
Byrne had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in the Circuit Court in December 2011. The offence occurred in November 2010, when he was 14. In June 2013, he was sentenced to two years’ detention, with the final 12 months suspended subject to conditions. His sentence was activated in July after a place became available at Oberstown, and he was given credit for time already spent in custody.
His release date was set for 26 February 2014. The judgment said it would have been 26 November 2013 if he had received the 25% remission available under Rule 59 of the Prison Rules to eligible prisoners, including young offenders detained at St Patrick’s Institution. The applicant argued that excluding Oberstown detainees from the same treatment amounted to unconstitutional discrimination. The respondent relied on the different, educational nature of the Oberstown regime to justify the distinction.
Justice Hogan acknowledged the school-based and supportive features of Oberstown. He nevertheless concluded that the Children Act 2001 did not treat detention there as essentially different in law from detention elsewhere in the juvenile justice system. Among the provisions he considered was section 151(4), which envisages a child’s release from detention on earning remission. He also noted provisions allowing transfers between St Patrick’s Institution and children’s detention schools without changing the period of detention.
The judge held that the difference in release dates based on where a young offender served a sentence could not be objectively justified. He found that denying Byrne remission breached Article 40.1. Treating Rule 59 as applicable was, he said, the practical means of vindicating Byrne’s rights; continued detention beyond the remission date was unlawful under Article 40.4.2.
The order concerned Byrne’s detention. The judgment did not itself set out a general administrative scheme for applying remission to all Oberstown detainees.