Supreme Court: District Court can change mind as to summary nature of offences at case-management stage

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] IESC 52
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Supreme Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice Peter Charleton

Delivering judgment for the Supreme Court, Mr Justice Peter Charleton determined: “If a colleague has made a decision, that is noted on the order that is put before another judge who comes to hear the case. There is no necessity for a judge coming new to a case to reembark on a task that has already been undertaken. Where, however, as here, the task is to allot precious court time with trials or pleas of guilty and sentence, it is both possible and sensible to consider if that capturing of court resources is for the benefit of the administration of justice.”

Background

In June 2019, two juveniles were convicted of murder before the Central Criminal Court. 

The presiding judge expressly stated that the identification restrictions set out in s.252 and 51(3) of the Children Act 2001 applied. S.51 of the 2001 Act provides for the offence of publishing or broadcasting information which could identify the juveniles, triable summarily or on indictment.

The applicants (and several other people) were charged with the same offence of breaches of the Children Act 2001 in respect of the identification of the juveniles. The respondent consented to the summary disposal of the cases.

When the charges were mentioned to the District Court on 28 October 2020, the judge heard an outline of the facts and accepted jurisdiction over the cases, adjourning the matters to 2 December 2020 for pleas or for obtaining a hearing date for the trials.

On the adjourned date, a different District Court judge refused jurisdiction and adjourned the cases to January 2021 for the respondent’s directions, finding that the offences were not minor in nature and were unfit for trial in the District Court summarily. Accordingly, the cases would instead be heard in the Circuit Court before a judge and jury.

The High Court and Court of Appeal

The applicants successfully sought leave to commence judicial review proceedings in respect of the District Court’s decision, with Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan quashing the order of the District Court refusing jurisdiction to try the applicants summarily. 

That order was reversed by the Court of Appeal on the basis that the second District Court judge was entitled to take a different view if the gravity of the circumstances were such that a jury disposal was required.

The Supreme Court 

Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was granted in April 2024. The Supreme Court considered the main issue for determination to be whether a judge in the District Court, whose colleague has already ruled that an offence is minor and fit to be tried summarily without a jury, could reconsider the nature of the offence of their own motion and, instead, refuse jurisdiction, thus sending the case for trial by jury to the Circuit Court.

Mr Justice Charleton highlighted at the outset of his judgment that save for the special categories of Special Criminal Court or persons subject to military law, the Constitution requires that where an offence is not minor in nature, there must be a jury trial.

The court set out a number of principles in relation to the classification of criminal offences, summarising that most modern criminal offences are triable either summarily or on indictment and that the consent of the respondent is usually required unless the offence is a ‘summary only’ offence. The judge also set out that once a case goes to the Circuit Court, there is no statutory mechanism of return to the District Court but that the Circuit Court is not obliged to impose a higher sentence than that provided for in summary disposal in the District Court.

The applicants contended that the transfer of the proceedings from the District Court to the Circuit Court involved a loss of opportunity for them, in that the Criminal Law (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016 removed the possibility of a conviction being expunged from their records by virtue of being recorded in the Circuit Court and that a more serious sentence could be anticipated.

In this regard, Mr Justice Charleton emphasised the precision of the 2016 Act, finding that there was no exclusion for offences tried on indictment except for sexual offences and the offences reserved to the Central Criminal Court, being treason, murder, rape offences and aggravated sexual assault.

The Supreme Court also considered that while the applicants could attract a greater sentence in the Circuit Court, “the fundamental answer is that no judge is entitled to impose an unjust sentence”.

As to the applicants’ assertion that they could no longer benefit from an order under the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 which would permit them the possibility of escaping conviction before a court of summary jurisdiction, the Supreme Court remarked “It has never been considered that there must be completely uniform standards as between the form and manner of initiation and disposal of cases in various courts.”

The court considered the applicants’ argument that there was no entitlement on part of the second District Court judge to re-visit the issue of jurisdiction at the case-management stage where it did not arise. 

Analysing the jurisprudence on this issue, the Supreme Court concluded that the second District Court judge was entitled to conclude that the offences in question were not minor in character for the purposes of Article 38.2 of the Constitution, having been called upon to make a decision as to how long each case would take and what amount of time on what dates could be assigned to each case. 

Mr Justice Charleton highlighted that “Judge Hughes could not have made such a decision — even on a preliminary or provisional basis — without knowing whether the District Court had jurisdiction in the first place. It was accordingly necessary for him to make such a determination at that point. This he did and it has not been otherwise suggested (i.e., apart from the fact that Judge O’Shea had apparently taken a different view) that he was not entitled to conclude that the offences were not minor in character.”

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.

Corcoran & Ors v. The Director of Public Prosecutions [2024] IESC 52