A Co Louth man has won his appeal against his conviction and near four-year sentence on a charge of IRA membership.
The Court of Criminal Appeal ordered a retrial in the case of Barry O’Brien from Mountain Court, Dundalk, following its decision yesterday that his conviction must be quashed in light of the recent Supreme Court judgment in the Damache case. The judgment declared a provision of the Offences Against the State Act 1939 permitting search warrants to be issued by detective superintendents unconstitutional. In the Damache case, the Supreme Court found section 29 (1) of the 1939 Act was repugnant to the Constitution because it permitted a search of a person’s home on foot of a warrant not issued by an independent person.