O'Boyle and Rodgers v Attorney - General and General O'Duffy

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court (Irish Free State)
• Judgment Date: 11 February 1929
• Date: 11 February 1929

O'Boyle & Rodgers v. Attorney-General & O'Duffy.

FRANK O'BOYLE and HUGH RODGERS

Plaintiffs

and

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL and GENERAL O'DUFFY,Commissioner of the Civic Guard

Defendants.

Constitutional law - Liberty of the person - Prisoner in Northern Ireland escaping into the Irish Free State - Injunction to restrain arrest in the Irish Free State - Warrant issued in Northern Ireland - Warrant backed by the Commissioner of the Civic Guard in the Irish Free State - Jurisdiction - Injunction - Habeas corpus - Petty Sessions Act (Ir.), 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 93), sect. 29 - Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann éireann) Act, 1922 (No. 1 of 1922), Sch. I, Arts. 2, 6, 73.

Motion for an interlocutory injunction.

Each of the two plaintiffs, Frank O'Boyle and Hugh Rodgers, issued a plenary summons, the defendants being the Attorney-General of the Irish Free State and General O'Duffy, the Commissioner of the Civic Guard. Each of the plaintiffs claimed in his summons: 1, A declaration that under the laws and Constitution of the Irish Free State the conviction for murder pronounced in the City of Belfast on or about the 25th of April, 1921, by an assembly of British military officers sitting as a General Court Martial under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920, and the sentence of penal servitude for life passed on the plaintiff as a result of such conviction could not be recognised or enforced; 2, a declaration that under the laws and Constitution of the Irish Free State the plaintiff was wholly immune within the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State from all molestation and arrest by way of enforcement against him of the said military order, and that the plaintiff was entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the Irish Free State in the premises; 3, a declaration that the Commissioner of the Civic Guard had no jurisdiction to endorse for execution within the Irish Free State any warrant issued by any external authority or person for the arrest of the plaintiff either in pursuance of such alleged conviction and sentence or otherwise; 4, an injunction, or an order in the nature of an injunction, restraining the defendants and each of them, their officers, servants, and agents, from arresting the plaintiff or causing him to be arrested in the Irish Free State upon any warrant issued by any external authority or person in pursuance of such alleged conviction or sentence. These summonses were both issued on the 17th January, 1929.

An ex parte application on behalf of the two plaintiffs was made on the 21st January, 1929, for leave to serve notice on both the defendants for the sitting of the Court on the 29th January, 1929, of applications for an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants and each of them until judgment in the actions from arresting the plaintiffs or causing them to be arrested in the Irish Free State "upon any warrant issued by any external authority or person in pursuance of an alleged conviction of the plaintiffs for murder purporting to have been made in the City of Belfast on or about April 25th, 1921, by an assembly of British military officers, sitting as a General Court Martial under an enactment styled 'the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920,' or in pursuance of an alleged sentence of penal servitude for life purporting to have been passed on the plaintiffs as a result of such alleged conviction."Accordingly on the 29th January this motion came before the Court.

Each of the plaintiffs filed an affidavit in support of the motion in which the following facts were stated:—While...