The High Court has refused Keith Doyle’s challenge to the Irish Prison Service’s refusal to consider him for temporary release while he serves a mandatory minimum sentence for a firearms offence.
In a judgment delivered on 30 July 2015, President of the High Court Kearns held that the statutory restriction on temporary release applies to prisoners serving mandatory minimum sentences, despite changes to the temporary-release scheme made in 2003 and 2004. The restriction allows release during the minimum term only for grave humanitarian reasons. No such reason arose in this case.
Doyle was sentenced in June 2013 to concurrent five-year prison terms for possessing a controlled drug for supply and possessing a firearm in suspicious circumstances. The firearms offence carries a presumptive minimum sentence. He was held at Mountjoy Prison and later moved to its training unit, where he completed rehabilitation courses and worked. He had previously received temporary release within the prison complex to attend courses.
He sought release to attend an interview for a business and finance course at Rathmines College. The Irish Prison Service told him he was barred from temporary release for education, work, family or reintegration purposes because of the firearms sentence. He then sought judicial review, arguing that the relevant firearms-law restriction referred only to powers under rules made under the 1960 Act. In his submission, the 2003 legislation put temporary release on a statutory footing, so the restriction did not prevent the Minister from considering his application. He also argued that his conviction order or warrant did not identify the sentence as a minimum term.
The respondents argued that the restriction must be read to cover temporary release under the amended scheme; otherwise, it would have no effect. The court accepted that position. It held that temporary release is permissive rather than penal, so the strict construction principle relied on by Doyle did not apply. Reading the statutes together, the court concluded that the 2003 Act did not silently remove the restriction Parliament had imposed for prisoners serving mandatory minimum sentences. It said a contrary reading would produce an absurd result and leave the restriction without effect.
The court also rejected the challenge to the warrant. It found that the warrant identified the firearms offence and specified a five-year term, satisfying the statutory requirements for a mandatory minimum sentence.
The judgment was confined by agreement to these non-constitutional judicial review grounds. The court did not decide Doyle’s separate constitutional and European Convention arguments. It refused relief on the two grounds before it; the judgment does not determine whether he could qualify for release on grave humanitarian grounds.