Mr Peter Pringle, who was wrongly jailed for almost 15 years for the murder of a garda, can take an action for damages against the State, the High Court ruled yesterday.
Mr Pringle is claiming damages for negligence, breach of duty and failure to vindicate his constitutional rights arising out of his arrest in July 1980 and his prosecution for alleged capital murder and robbery.
In November 1980, Mr Pringle was convicted of the capital murder of Garda Henry Byrne following a bank robbery the previous July in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. He was sentenced to death and also given 15 years in prison for robbery.
The death sentence was commuted to one of 40 years' penal servitude. He served 14 years and 10 months before his conviction was quashed in 1995.
In May 1995, the Court of Criminal Appeal found that Mr Pringle had established a newly discovered fact which rendered his conviction unsafe and unsatisfactory.
It quashed his conviction and directed a new trial. Later that month, the DPP entered a nolle prosequi in the Special Criminal Court.
In June 1995, Mr Pringle applied to the Court of Criminal Appeal for a certificate stating that the newly discovered fact whereby his conviction was quashed showed there had been a miscarriage of justice. That court refused a certificate, but the case went to the Supreme Court.
In March 1997, the Supreme Court referred the matter back to the Court of Criminal Appeal to allow Mr Pringle renew his application. Mr Pringle has not done so far.
The State argued in the High Court that it could only be burdened with one set of proceedings seeking compensation. It claimed that having submitted to the Court of Criminal Appeal's jurisdiction, Mr Pringle was barred from taking a separate damages claim.
The High Court last May ordered that a preliminary issue be tried as to whether Mr Pringle, in submitting to the Court of Criminal Appeal's jurisdiction on the issue of applying for a certificate under Section 9 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993, had exercised the option afforded to him by Section 9 (2) of that Act (to seek a certificate). Yesterday's ruling was that he had not.
Because Mr Pringle had not exercised his option under section 9 (2), the court ruled he was not debarred from seeking to assert his claim in the present proceedings.
Giving judgment, Mr Justice O'Donovan said he thought State counsel was probably correct in saying it was clearly in the contemplation of the legislature when enacting Section 9 that only one set of proceedings would be brought in respect of the matters to which the section related.
He did not think it followed that a person who, for whatever reason, had not obtained the certificate was precluded from pursuing an action for damages even when, as in the present case, he had initiated an application for such a certificate.