State (at the prosecution of John Clarke) v Maura Roche

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1986
• Date: 01 January 1986
• Court: High Court

(H.C., S.C.)

The State (Clarke)

and

Roche

- Time limit - Summary jurisdiction - Summons - Issue - District Court - Six months time limit for making of complaint in summary offences - Whether complaint must within six months be brought to attention of person authorised to receive it - Whether consideration of complaint and issue of summons are administrative acts capable of being delegated -Rules of the District Court, 1948 (S.R. O. No.431 of 1947), s. 66 - Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851 (c. 93), ss. 10(4), 21.

The prosecutor garda applied to the Dublin District Court clerk's office for the issue of a summons charging the defendant with an offence under the Road Traffic Acts. The summons which was issued recited on its face that a complaint had been made to the clerk, and purported to be signed by him. On this summons being struck out without prejudice to its being re-entered, due to bad service, a fresh summons was applied for and issued, grounded upon the original complaint but purporting to be signed by a successor to the first District Court clerk. The face of this summons had been altered so that it did not recite that a complaint had been made to the issuing clerk. The respondent District...