The State must in future supply reasons for bringing people before the non-jury Special Criminal Court instead of an ordinary court, following a landmark decision by an international human rights body.
To date, the Director of Public Prosecutions has not had to outline his reasons.
The UN Human Rights Committee has found that Ireland violated the rights of a convicted armed robber, Joseph Kavanagh, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This was because he was deprived of a trial by jury without the DPP showing "reasonable and objective" grounds for referring his case to the Special Criminal Court. The committee says that in future the State should not try people before the Special Criminal Court unless it can show reasonable and objective criteria for the decision.
Kavanagh (43) has served 7-1/2 years of a 12-year sentence for robbery, possession of a gun and demanding money with menaces with intent to steal. He was arrested in connection with the kidnapping of National Irish Bank chief executive Mr James Lacey in 1993.
The decision of the 16-member committee is the first against Ireland by the quasi-judicial body. While its decisions are not legally binding within Ireland, the State has undertaken to observe the international covenant and provide a remedy where there is a violation. Ireland has never failed to implement a decision of an international human rights body against it. The State has 90 days to tell the committee what steps it has taken to conform with its decision.
John Gilligan is the latest high-profile criminal to be convicted in the Special Criminal Court. Last March he failed in his challenge to the DPP's decision to try him for importation of cannabis before that court.
Gilligan's legal sources said last night they would closely scrutinise the decision to see what application it has to his case.
The three-judge Special Criminal Court was set up in 1972 in the wake of an upsurge in paramilitary violence in the North and amid concerns about jury intimidation.
The Geneva-based committee said Kavanagh's right to equality before the law was violated because he was deprived of a trial by jury without the DPP showing "reasonable and objective" grounds for a hearing before the Special Criminal Court. The committee did not find that his trial was a violation of his right to a fair hearing.
The committee says the State must give Kavanagh an "effective remedy", although it does not specify what this is.
Kavanagh's solicitor, Mr Michael Farrell, said last night the only effective remedy for his client was to release him. "Without prejudice to whether he was rightly or wrongly convicted, he should be released immediately," said Mr Farrell, who has written to the Minister for Justice calling for this action to be taken.
Last year the committee called for steps to abolish the Special Criminal Court.