Supreme court judgment:Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform -v- Tobin
Neutral Citation: IESC 37
Supreme Court
Judgments were delivered on June 19th, 2012, by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Denham, Mr Justice Murray, Mr Justice Hardiman, Mr Justice Fennelly and Mr Justice ODonnell
Judgment
The court unanimously allowed an appeal by Ciaran Tobin against an order of the High Court that he should be surrendered to Hungary under the European Arrest Warrant to serve a sentence for his role in a road traffic accident in which two children died.
Background
The accident happened on April 9th, 2000, while Mr Tobin was working in Hungary. He was charged with negligent driving causing death. The trial took place in May 2002. Mr Tobin had returned to Ireland by that stage and opted to be represented at the trial by a lawyer, as permitted under Hungarian law. He was convicted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.
The Hungarian authorities sought his extradition to serve his sentence and the Irish Central Authority sought to have him surrendered on the basis that he had “fled” Hungary, though he had left openly on the completion of his term of work with his Irish employer in Hungary. The proceedings began in 2004 and the High Court refused to order his surrender. The State appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the High Court decision in July 2007.
Mr Justice Hardiman commented: “It is important to reiterate that, had these proceedings concerned a Hungarian citizen who was involved in a tragic traffic accident in Ireland, no question of his surrender to Ireland would arise. Even if he received a custodial sentence, and even if there were no substantive or procedural challenge available to it, he would be entitled to serve that sentence in Hungary because the Hungarians have invoked a provision to that effect in the European Arrest Warrant arrangements. Ireland has not done so.”
Referring to his judgment in the case of Minister for Justice -v- Bailey, he said: “This case, too, illustrates that Ireland is prepared to surrender its citizens, or the citizens of other countries who happen to be in Ireland, to countries which would not themselves deliver their own citizens or visitors to Ireland if the positions were reversed.”
He said he did not think these provisions of the European Arrest Warrant arrangements were widely known, or that they could be used to deliver a person of good character on road traffic charges. This confusion was not surprising because when the European Arrest Warrant “framework document” was drawn up in 2001 it related exclusively to terrorist offences, he said. It was subsequently extended to a great number of offences, many of which are not offences of specific intent at all.
Following the refusal of the Supreme Court to surrender Mr Tobin in July 2007, in July 2009 the Oireachtas enacted the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2009. This removed the reference to “fled” from the original European Arrest Warrant Act. The Act came into operation in August and Mr Tobin was arrested again under the new Act in November that year.
The second application for his surrender came before the High Court in June 2010. Judgment was delivered seven months later and the Supreme Court heard the appeal a year after that.
In the meantime he voluntarily relinquished his bail and entered custody in Ireland in November in the hope that this would be taken into account in the amount of time he would have to spend away from his family if surrendered. Mr Justice Hardiman pointed out that 12 years had elapsed since the legal process began. None of the enormous lapse of time could be laid at the door of the appellant.
The High Court certified the case for appeal on a point of law of exceptional public importance, asking specifically if there had been an abuse of process.
Mr Justice Hardiman said that is was well established that abuse of process of the sort alleged here, where Mr Tobin was pursued a second time by the State when it changed the legislation, was separate and distinct from res judicata, existing to protect a litigant from oppression or harassment. Such protection entailed rights of a constitutional nature and arose fundamentally from respect for the dignity of the human person.
There should be finality in litigation and a party should not be vexed twice in the same manner; it is an abuse to subject a party to unjust harassment; the appellant must be protected from oppression and it is important in the public interest that litigation should not drag on for ever.
Mr Justice Hardiman concluded that the proceedings were an abuse of process and he would decline to surrender Mr Tobin, a conclusion also reached by the other members of the court in separate judgments.
The full judgments are on courts.ie
Lawyers: Brian Murray SC, David Keane SC and Eoin Carolan BL, instructed by Garret Sheehan for the appellant; Maurice Collins SC and Ronan Kennedy BL, instructed by Chief State Solicitor, for the State