The State (C.) v Minister for Justice

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1968
• Date: 01 January 1968
• Court: Supreme Court

(S.C.)

The State (C.)

and

Minister for Justice

District Justice -Pre-Treaty statute - Repugnancy to Constitution - Statute authorising detention by ministerial order of prisoner in mental institution - Prisoner on remand from District Court - Whether Justice exercising a judicial function on preliminary investigation of indictable offence - Whether ministerial order an interference with such function -Constitution of Ireland, 1937. Articles 6, 28, 34, 37, 50 - Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act, 1875, s. 13 - Criminal Justice Act, 1960, s. 8 (2)-Adaptation of Enactments Act, 1922, s. 11 -Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, s. 1 Sch. -Provisional Government (Transfer of Functions) Order, 1922 - Mental Treatment Act, 1945, s. 165.

The provisions of s. 13 of the Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act 1875, authorised the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to order that a person, who had been remanded by a justice for further examination and who had been certified during the period of remand to be insane, be removed to a district lunatic asylum; and they further authorised the confinement of such person in the asylum until he should have been certified as being sane. The prosecutor was brought before the District Court and charged with having committed indictable offences and, in the course of the preliminary investigation of the charges, that Court remanded him in custody to St. Patrick's Institution. On the 10th September, 1965, he was certified to be insane, and on the same day he was removed from the institution to St. Brendan's Hospital as directed by the Minister for Justice (as the successor of the Lord Lieutenant). Subsequently, the prosecutor was transferred from that hospital to the Central Mental Hospital pursuant to order from the Minister. The District Court was thus prevented from exercising its jurisdiction in relation to such charges on the return date of such remand. Heldby the Supreme Court ( Ó Dálaigh C.J., Haugh, Walsh, Budd and FitzGerald JJ.) 1, that the powers conferred on the Lord Lieutenant by s. 13 of the Act of 1875, insofar as they are still exercisable, are exercisable by the Minister for Justice. 2. That such powers are not part of the executive power of the State within the meaning of Article 28, section 2, of the Constitution of Ireland. 3. That...