A certificate signed by a garda dealing with evidence of arrest, charge and caution of an accused person may be admitted by the District Court without the judge having to be satisfied the person was not arrested on a warrant, the Supreme Court decided yesterday.
In a decision expected to reduce the amount of Garda time spent on preliminary court procedures, the court said this was the proper interpretation of Section 6.1 of the Criminal Justice Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1997.
It overturned a High Court decision, dealing with a legal issue referred by a district court judge, which said the prosecution must prove that a person was not arrested under warrant before the Garda certificate could be admissible.
In her judgment, Mrs Justice Denham said Section 6 was introduced to enable evidence of arrest, charge and caution to be given by certificate if the accused was arrested other than under a warrant. This obviated the necessity of the arresting garda being in court.
If the garda had to be in court to give evidence that the arrest was other than under a warrant before the certificate could be admitted, there was "the absurd result" that the garda was required to be in court to prove their presence was not required.
The case arose after a solicitor argued that before a district court judge could accept evidence of arrest, charge and caution by way of a certificate signed by a garda, the district judge must be satisfied the person has been "arrested otherwise than under a warrant."
Delivering one of the three Supreme Court judgments, Mr Justice O'Flaherty said that a district judge was entitled to assume that persons in authority would act in accordance with what was required to be done by them in obeying the law.
The district judge was also entitled to assume they would not think of bringing a person before the court under the procedure in debate if there was in existence to their knowledge an unexecuted warrant.
Mr Justice O'Flaherty said a person arrested under a warrant would be brought before a court as soon as practicable.
They were dealing with a purely procedural matter, before the holding of a trial. In a case such as that before the district court it would be clear to the district judge that once Section 6 of the 1997 Act was being availed of, it must be that the sergeant at the Garda station would be satisfied that no warrant for the arrest of an accused was in existence.
The other members of the court were Mr Justice Barrington, Mr Justice Keane and Mr Justice Lynch.