The State (at the prosecution of Jennings) v J Furlong

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 24 January 1966
• Date: 24 January 1966
• Docket Number: (1965. No. 172 S.S.)
• Court: High Court

(H.C.)

State (Sumers Jennings) Furlong

and

Furlong

Validity - Extradition -Alleged failure of statute to implement rule of international law - Whether rule of speciality part of Irish domestic law - Constitution of Ireland,Art. 29, s. 3 - Extradition Act, 1965, Pt. III.

Pursuant to the provisions contained in Part III of the Extradition Act, 1965, the prosecutor was arrested and remanded in custody in Ireland on foot of a warrant which had been issued by a judicial authority in England for the purpose of having the prosecutor conveyed to that country. The prosecutor obtained a conditional order of habeas corpus on the ground, in effect, that Part III of the Act was repugnant to the terms of section 3 of Article 29 of the Constitution as that Part of the Act did not implement a generally recognised principle of international law, namely, the rule of speciality. The prosecutor applied to the High Court for an order making the conditional order absolute notwithstanding the cause shown by the respondents. At the hearing of that application it was submitted on behalf of the prosecutor that the rule of speciality was a generally recognised principle of international law and, as such, was accepted in Ireland by the express terms of section 3 of Article 29 of the constitution as a rule of conduct in Ireland's relations with other states and that, accordingly, the failure of Part III of the Act to implement that rule rendered the provisions of that Part of the Act repugnant to the terms of...