The Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional a law requiring a minimum five-year prison term for certain firearms offences where the person convicted had a relevant prior conviction. The court held that the Oireachtas could not impose that mandatory minimum on only a limited class of offenders identified by their personal circumstances or the circumstances of the offence.
Wayne Ellis brought the constitutional challenge after pleading guilty in 2013 to possessing a sawn-off shotgun at Knocklyon Shopping Centre and possessing a sledgehammer, a bottle containing petrol and socks intended for use in connection with that offence. The source does not state the year of the second charge; it records the offences as occurring on 5 July 2012.
At sentencing in May 2014, the Circuit Court imposed a five-year sentence for the firearms offence and suspended it in full, along with a fully suspended three-year sentence for the second offence. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed on grounds of undue leniency. In July 2016, the Court of Appeal set aside the suspended firearms sentence and imposed five years’ imprisonment from that date, giving credit for time Ellis had spent in custody. It upheld the suspended sentence for the second offence.
Ellis then challenged the constitutionality of section 27A(8) of the Firearms Act 1964, as amended. The High Court rejected the challenge in 2016, and the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal in 2017. The Supreme Court allowed his appeal in plenary civil proceedings and declared section 27A(8), as substituted by section 59 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, repugnant to the Constitution.
The judgment distinguished a penalty that applies generally to everyone convicted of an offence from a mandatory penalty imposed only on a limited group, such as people with specified prior convictions. It held that choosing an appropriate sentence for an individual is part of the courts’ role in administering justice. The court said its decision did not address other sentencing laws that leave judges some ability to depart from a prescribed sentence.
The Supreme Court did not decide what the declaration meant for the five-year sentence imposed in the criminal appeal. It directed that the criminal appeal be promptly re-entered before the Court of Appeal.