The Supreme Court dismissed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal in the case of Jeffrey Carter and affirmed the High Court decision, according to a judgment delivered by Justice Hardiman on 5 March 2015. Hardiman said he agreed with the order proposed by Justice O’Donnell and adopted O’Donnell’s reasons. The judgment excerpt does not set out those reasons or the underlying facts of Carter’s case.
The judgment also addressed a separate case stated concerning Seán Kenny and section 99(9) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, as amended. That provision requires a court, before sentencing a person convicted of an offence committed while subject to a suspended sentence, to remand that person in custody or on bail to the next sitting of the court that imposed the suspended sentence.
Hardiman agreed with the answers to the questions in Kenny’s case proposed by O’Donnell. He said the relevant suspended sentence had been imposed by the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The judge who imposed it had retired by the time District Judge Blake dealt with Kenny’s case; Hardiman said that did not prevent remand to the next sitting of the court, since the statutory reference was to the court rather than the individual judge.
Hardiman read “next sitting” as the next sitting directed and appointed by the authorised court official, with notice given under the Circuit Court Rules. He said a sitting could run over days, weeks or months, and was not a new sitting each time a judge took the bench. He rejected the State’s proposed interpretation of “next sitting” as the next convenient or reasonably practicable sitting, saying that would add words to the statute.
He considered the earlier Irish case R. (Mackey) v. Justices of the County of Limerick, which had interpreted “next sitting” in a forfeiture case as the first sitting at which it was reasonably practicable to proceed. Hardiman said that case concerned forfeiture of seized nets and did not involve a person remanded in custody. He would not apply its broader reading to a provision allowing a person to be held in custody, where remand time must be strictly limited.
Hardiman said the District Judge’s order in Kenny’s case complied with the statute, while clarifying that he reached that conclusion without relying on a broad construction of “next”. The source excerpt does not include O’Donnell’s proposed answers or provide further detail of the order in Kenny’s case.