In striking down a 15-year prison sentence imposed on a convicted drug dealer, the High Court of Ireland has ruled that section 27(3F) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 is unconstitutional. The High Court judge Mr. Justice Michael Twomey said that the section is unconstitutional because it has the effect of requiring a court to impose a mandatory minimum sentence on a limited class of persons, namely those previously convicted of drug trafficking. The section thus wrongfully interferes with the constitutional powers entrusted to judges regarding the imposition of sentences on convicted persons.
Mr. Justice Michael Twomey held that he was bound by the previous decision in Ellis v The Minister for Justice and Equality, Ireland and the Attorney General [2019] 3 I.R. 511, which had determined that similar provisions of the Firearms Act, 1964 (as amended) were unconstitutional. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Oireachtas could not impose specified sentences on a limited class of people who shared a particular characteristic – reoffending.
The case at hand concerns Mr. Seán McManus who ran a sophisticated cocaine extraction laboratory in a rented house in Bantry, Co. Cork. The trial judge in the Cork Circuit Criminal Court considered Mr. McManus to be the principal actor in the operation which involved importing cocaine in strips of fabric from Brazil and then extracting the cocaine using a solvent called isopropanol. Mr. McManus pleaded guilty to having cocaine worth more than 13,000 in his possession.
In delivering his decision, the trial judge made reference to the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in light of Mr. McManus having a similar previous conviction but went on to say that it “goes nowhere near approaching the seriousness of his involvement in this case” and thus, imposed a 15-year sentence on Mr. McManus, with the final three years suspended.
His decision caused some confusion. Mr. McManus’ legal team issued plenary proceedings seeking to challenge the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum sentence imposed on him while the State submitted that the comments of the trial judge established that there was no causal link between the mandatory minimum sentence and the final sentence imposed on Mr. McManus.
The High Court rejected this submission by the State. The court considered that the trial judge determined the starting point to be 10 years in line with section 27(3F) and not zero years. The court held that it was very difficult to see how the trial judge was not influenced by the mandatory minimum sentence in his decision.
However, the High Court held that it was bound to follow the decision in Ellis therefore Mr. McManus’s conviction should stand but the 15-year sentence, with the final three years suspended, imposed on him should be remitted to the Circuit Criminal Court for reconsideration.
Click here to read the full judgment.