Minister for Justice and Equality v Mangan
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judgment Date | 18 September 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] IESCDET 126 |
| Docket Number | A:AP:IE:2017:000132 |
| Court | Supreme Court |
| Date | 18 September 2018 |
[2018] IESCDET 126
A:AP:IE:2017:000132
THE SUPREME COURT
ORDER SOUGHT TO BE APPEALED
| COURT: Court of Appeal |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT: 11th December, 2017 |
| DATE OF ORDER: 11th December, 2017 |
| DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 18th December, 2017 |
| THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL WAS MADE ON THE 22nd DECEMBER, 2017, AND WAS IN TIME |
This Determination relates to an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court from a judgment of the Court of Appeal (Birmingham, Mahon and Edwards JJ.) delivered on the 11th December, 2017, and from the resulting order of that Court made on the same date and perfected on the 18th December, 2017.
Mr Patrick Joseph Mangan, referred to in this Determination as ‘the applicant’, seeks leave to appeal to this Court from the said judgment and order of the Court of Appeal. The Minister for Justice and Equality (also referred to in this Determination as ‘the Minister’) opposes the application for leave to appeal and intends to ask this Court to dismiss the appeal if leave is granted.
The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear appeals is set out in the Constitution. As is clear from the terms of Article 34.5.3° thereof and the many Determinations made by this Court since the enactment of the Thirty-third Amendment, it is necessary, in order for this Court to grant leave to appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal, that it be established by the applicant that the decision sought to be appealed involves a matter of general public importance, or that it is otherwise necessary in the interests of justice that there be an appeal to this Court.
The general principles applied by this Court in determining whether to grant or refuse leave to appeal having regard to the criteria incorporated into the Constitution as a result of the Thirty-third Amendment have now been considered in a large number of Determinations and are fully addressed in both a Determination issued by a panel consisting of all of the members of this Court in B.S. v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2017] IESC DET. 134 and in a unanimous judgment of a full Court delivered by O'Donnell J. in Price Waterhouse Cooper (A Firm) v. Quinn Insurance Ltd. (Under Administration) [2017] I.E.S.C. 73. It follows that it is unnecessary to revisit the new constitutional architecture for the purposes of this Determination.
It should be noted that any ruling in a Determination is a decision particular to that application and is final and conclusive only as far as the parties are concerned. The issue calling for the Court's consideration is whether the facts and legal issues meet the constitutional criteria as above identified. It will not, save in the rarest of circumstances, be appropriate to rely on a refusal of leave as having a precedential value relative to the substantive issues, if and when such issues should further arise in a different case. Where leave is granted on any issue, that matter will be disposed of in due course in the substantive decision of the Court.
A summary of the factual background of the case may be found in the written judgments delivered by the High Court ( [2017] I.E.H.C. 233) and the Court of Appeal ( [2017] I.E.C.A. 329) in the within proceedings. Further detail about the proceedings is contained in Mr. Mangan's Application for Leave and the Minister's replying document, which are available together with this Determination on the Courts Service website. Accordingly, what follows is but a short summary for contextual purposes only.
Background Facts
The surrender of the applicant is sought by Spain for the purpose of the prosecution of a single offence alleging his participation in illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances occurring on the 29th November, 2010. A European Arrest Warrant (‘EAW’) issued on the 5th April, 2013, and was endorsed by the High Court on the 1st February, 2016, pursuant to section 13 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, as amended (‘the 2003 Act’). The maximum sentence which the applicant may face if convicted is six years and nine months imprisonment.
It is alleged that Mr Mangan is the head of an organisation dealing in drug trafficking, in particular relating to the trafficking of cannabis from Morocco to Spain. It is claimed that a Mr Anthony Joseph O'Neill is the representative of the criminal group in the Costa del Sol. It is further said that Mr O'Neill received money and orders from the applicant to buy and deal with the drugs in question. This evidence was obtained when telephone conversations between the applicant, who was in Ireland and using an Irish phone at the time, and Mr O'Neill, in Spain using his Spanish phone, were intercepted and recorded; these conversations form the underlying basis for the request for surrender. The Spanish authorities were lawfully authorised to intercept telephone calls made to or from the phone of Mr O'Neill. No challenge to such authorisation has ever been taken, either in Spain or in this jurisdiction.
Judgment of the High Court
The applicant objected to his surrender on a number of grounds. All such objections are addressed in the written judgment of Donnelly J. delivered on the 13th March, 2017 ( [2017] I.E.H.C. 233). His principal objection, and the only one of continuing relevance, was that as a result of the wire-taps his right to privacy under the Constitution and under the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) has been violated, and will be further violated if he is surrendered to Spain.
During the course of the surrender hearing he argued that by reason of these interceptions his constitutional rights were being violated and that only the Irish courts could protect those rights. His submission was that the intended prosecution in Spain was exclusively premised upon evidence procured during the telephone taps, and that such taps were conducted without his consent or permission. The crux of his objection was that there was unlawful interference with his right to privacy because he was using his Irish-registered telephone in Ireland and the Spanish authorities had not shown that the Spanish authorisation extended to this jurisdiction or that they otherwise had lawful authority to intercept a call in this jurisdiction.
From the information before the Court, Donnelly J. took the view that the applicant only came to the attention of the Spanish authorities though telephone conversations that were already being tapped. The tapping was of Mr O'Neill's telephone in Spain. There was no evidence before the Court to suggest that the applicant himself was the subject of any phone tapping by the Spanish authorities; his...
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