The High Court has quashed a woman’s District Court conviction for drink-driving and stayed any further proceedings, finding that the criminal case had not been determined within a reasonable time and that a lengthy delay in executing a bench warrant was unexplained.
In a judgment delivered on 13 July 2011, Mr Justice Hedigan also ruled that the District Court judge who heard the case was wrong to say she had no jurisdiction to consider the woman’s argument about delay because another judge had already addressed it.
The woman had been charged over an alleged offence on 18 June 2004. After she failed to appear in the District Court, a bench warrant was issued in July 2005. The judgment records one attempt to execute it, in November 2005. The woman’s estranged husband told gardaí she had emigrated. She was contacted about the warrant in April 2009 and later brought before the court.
At two District Court appearances in October and December 2009, the woman sought to have the case struck out, citing delay. The judge declined. When she raised delay again at her trial in February 2010, Judge Ann Watkin said she had no jurisdiction to hear the issue because it had previously been dealt with by another judge. The trial went ahead and the woman was convicted. She received a three-year driving disqualification and a €5,000 fine.
Justice Hedigan held that an earlier ruling by a District Court judge did not prevent another judge from rehearing the delay issue. He agreed that delay should be raised during the course of a trial rather than as a separate preliminary issue, but said the woman had been prevented from raising it during the trial after Judge Watkin declined to hear it.
The judgment noted that a Circuit Court appeal could have offered an alternative remedy. However, Justice Hedigan said refusing relief on that basis could leave the conviction in place six years after the incident and bring confirmation of it seven years after. He concluded that the proceedings had not been determined within a reasonable time, and that the delay in executing the warrant was “both inordinate and not satisfactorily explained”.
The court granted the relief sought: it quashed the District Court conviction and ordered a stay on any further proceedings. The judgment does not report a separate ruling on the sentence or grant the requested declaration about constitutional rights.