The Court of Appeal has ruled that an application to activate a suspended sentence imposed by the Circuit Court on appeal from the District Court must be brought before the District Court that originally imposed sentence.
The ruling answered a question referred by the Circuit Court about whether the District Court could deal with an activation application after the Circuit Court had varied the original sentence on appeal. The question arose in a case concerning Peter Dinnegan.
Dinnegan was convicted in Mullingar District Court on 15 October 2020 of three theft or fraud offences, criminal damage and an offence under the Criminal Justice Act 1984. He received six-month prison sentences on each count, concurrent with a sentence he was already serving.
On appeal, Mullingar Circuit Court varied the sentences for two offences on 11 December 2020, imposing a six-month term suspended for five years on condition that Dinnegan enter a €500 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. The remaining District Court sentences were affirmed.
In July 2022, Dinnegan was convicted and sentenced on new charges in the District Court. It emerged during sentencing that the new offences had been committed while the suspended sentences were in force. The District Court returned him to the Circuit Court under section 99(8A) of the 2006 Act for an application concerning activation of the suspended sentences.
At the Circuit Court, Judge Keenan Johnson referred a legal question to the Court of Appeal. Dinnegan argued that a District Court judge could not amend or determine the outcome of an order made by the higher court, particularly given the discretion involved in deciding whether and to what extent to revoke a suspended sentence. The prosecution submitted that section 99(22) clearly assigns that jurisdiction to the court from which the appeal was taken.
In a judgment delivered on 11 July 2023, Ms Justice Tara Burns said section 99(22) was clear: where a suspended sentence is imposed on appeal, the relevant references in the Act mean the court from whose decision the appeal was taken. She said the District Court was considering a sentence it had jurisdiction to impose, and that the statutory arrangement did not unlawfully interfere with judicial discretion.
The Court of Appeal answered “Yes” to the referred question. It decided the jurisdictional issue only; the judgment does not record a decision on whether the suspended sentences in Dinnegan’s case should be activated.