The Court of Appeal has allowed appeals by Sean Moynihan and Kenneth Forde, ruling that committal warrants issued after bail money was estreated were void because the notices sent to them omitted a required warning about imprisonment.
The appeals concerned High Court orders made on 27 October 2017 refusing to quash the warrants. The appellants argued that the notices did not meet the requirements of the District Court Rules and that the warrants were therefore issued without jurisdiction.
Both men had entered recognisances requiring them to appear in court. Forde failed to appear on 12 December 2013. The District Court ordered that €500 be estreated, allowed 28 days for payment and provided for five days’ imprisonment in default. A notice was sent by prepaid ordinary post to the address he had supplied. He did not pay, and a committal warrant was issued on 20 February 2015.
Moynihan, who had been granted station bail after being charged under the Misuse of Drugs Acts, failed to appear on 18 September 2014. The District Court ordered €150 estreated, allowed 21 days for payment and provided for seven days’ imprisonment in default. A notice was sent to the address he had given. He did not pay, and a warrant was issued on 18 December 2014. His charges were later disposed of on pleas of guilty.
The notices in both cases omitted the “penal endorsement” prescribed by the form in the District Court Rules: a warning that failure to pay within the specified period would result in a committal warrant without further notice. The State argued that the omission did not invalidate the notices, relying on rules allowing some departures from prescribed forms and non-compliance to be treated as irregularities.
The Court of Appeal rejected that argument. It said the notices did not tell the appellants the consequences of failing to comply, and no alternative wording gave an equivalent warning. The court held that the statutory scheme and District Court Rules required each step in the enforcement process to be followed. Proper notification was a condition precedent to enforcement; without it, the notices were no notice at all and the warrants were void.
The court said notice gives a person an opportunity to seek variation or discharge of an estreatment order and informs them of their procedural rights and the consequences of not acting. It allowed both appeals. The judgment does not state that the underlying estreatment orders were set aside.