Supreme Court: District Court judge misconstrued Cullen principles in finding drink-driving arrests unlawful

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2018] IESC 51
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Supreme Court
• Judge:
  Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne

The District Court judge in all three cases had found that the use of handcuffs in the course of their arrests had been objectively unreasonable, however on appeal by way of case stated, the High Court found that the District Court judge had erred in applying the principles identified in Cullen which gave members of An Garda Síochána considerable scope in judging reasonableness in any given case.

Upholding the High Court and Court of Appeal decisions, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne agreed that the District Court judge had misconstrued Cullen, and dismissed the appeals.

Background

In three separate cases, Mr Cicero Pires, Mr James Corrigan, and Mr Paul Gannon appeared before the District Court for offences contrary to ss. 4(4)(b) and (5) of the Road Traffic Act 2010.

All three men had, in separate incidents, been arrested on suspicion of drink driving and handcuffed by Gardaí in the course of effecting arrest. In all three incidents, the men were described as being compliant, and that none were aggressive.

District Court Judge Bryan Smyth found that the arrests were unlawful and acquitted all three men.

The three acquittals were appealed to the High Court by way of case stated from District Court Judge Bryan Smyth, pursuant to s. 2 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1857, as extended by s. 51 of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Act 1961, on a point of law, namely: “Was I correct in law to find the arrest of the accused unlawful?”

High Court

In the High Court in July 2015, Mr Justice Max Barrett identified fourteen principles (set out in paragraph 10 of the Supreme Court’s judgment) derived from the majority judgment of DPP (Moyles) v Cullen [2014] IESC 7.

Answering the question posed in the case stated as “No”, Mr Justice Barrett found that Judge Smyth was incorrect to find the arrests unlawful, concluding that Judge Smyth’s reasoning contravened principles 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in Cullen.

Court of Appeal

In the Court of Appeal in December 2016, Mr Justice Alan Mahon agreed that Judge Smyth had erred in the application of the principles in Cullen.

Mr Justice Mahon said that what was required of the District Court judge was to apply a subjective test of reasonableness rather than an objective test. In this regard, what was required was an assessment of whether the Gardaí had made a genuine assessment as to whether the use of handcuffs was necessary. Mr Justice Mahon said that if the Court was satisfied that the Garda in each case had arrived at a judgment in good faith that the use of handcuffs was required, then it did not matter whether the judgment arrived at was objectively reasonable.

Satisfied that Judge Smyth had not found in any instance that the Gardaí did not genuinely believe that handcuffs were required, or that their reasoning was based on any untruths, Mr Justice Mahon said that only an objective test had been applied – therefore Judge Smyth had not made his findings with full regard to the principles in Cullen.

Supreme Court

The appellants were granted leave on two issues:

• (a) Did the High Court and Court of Appeal correctly apply the scope and principles contained in s.2 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1857, as amended?
• (b) Did the High Court and Court of Appeal correctly apply the law as decided in DPP v. Cullen?

Delivering the judgment of the five-judge Supreme Court, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne was satisfied that the case stated procedure, confined to determining issues of law, concerned the question of whether the principles set out in the Cullen decision were correctly applied to the facts of the respective cases. Ms Justice Dunne was satisfied that this procedure was appropriately invoked in the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

Considering the second issue, Ms Justice Dunne said that Judge Smyth, in all three cases, was clearly of the view that the use of handcuffs had to be objectively justified. Stating that this seemed to ‘fly in the face of the principles made clear’ in Cullen, Ms Justice Dunne reiterated the principles identified in Cullen, including the finding that ‘any individual member of An Garda Síochána is fully entitled to and may well be obliged to apply handcuffs to an arrested person, where he or she genuinely believes that it is necessary to do so in the particular case’. Ms Justice Dunne said that it was clear from Cullen that considerable scope should be afforded to a member of the Gardaí in considering what is or is not reasonable in the circumstances of any given case.

Finding that District Court Judge Smyth had misconstrued the decision in Cullen, Ms Justice Dunne dismissed the appeals.

• by Seosamh Gráinséir for Irish Legal News