Irish DPP to consider Garland case
Having dismissed, in December last year, the US application for the extradition of former Irish Workers’ Party president, Seán Garland, in the long-running saga of the counterfeit ‘super-dollars’, Dublin High Court has now referred the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions to examine whether he should be charged in Ireland. From the BBC report
Giving his reasons on Friday, Mr Justice John Edwards decided that the offence for which Mr Garland was wanted in America is regarded as having been committed in Ireland and therefore the court is prohibited from extraditing him.
The BreakingNews.ie report is more specific
…in a lengthy written judgment issued today, the court explained that the 76-year-old should not be surrendered abroad for an alleged offence committed in Ireland.
Mr Justice John Edwards says the Irish courts are entitled to assert jurisdiction in respect of an alleged conspiracy formed in Ireland.
The delayed ruling should be available here at some point. In the meantime, as the Irish Times notes
Mr Justice John Edwards, who ruled in December the extradition application would be refused, announced today that the deeds to Mr Garland’s house would be released along with his passport and cash bail of €75,000.
Topic: Economy, Government, Society and Culture
Region: Global, Ireland
Peculiar if not novel reason for the judge refusing extradition is that “the offence for which the US wanted to extradite Mr Garland is regarded as having been committed in Ireland and therefore the court is prohibited from extraditing him”.
Nothing peculiar nor novel about it, Framer. If we take the USA for example – If a fugitive, wanted for a series of murders by the authorities in the state of Tennessee is apprehended in Kansas after having commited a mirder in that state, then Kansas will have first dibs at prosecution by simple virtue of having bagged their man and having him in their jurisdiction.
Any state will have a duty to treat with offences committed within its own jurisdiction before handing a defendant over to a foreign jurisdiction. The exception to that exercise in national sovereignty might be the United Kingdom who seem happy to turn their own citizens over to US courts merely for the asking even if that for which they are sought would not be a crime in the UK. But then the UK has been a client state of the USA for so long that it has forgotten entirely that it might have any sovereignty separate from Uncle Sam.
The alleged offences were not all committed in Ireland while the Irish authorities had expressed no interest in investigating or arraigning anyone for those that were committed in Ireland. What could the US do?
If Kansas declines the first dibs I doubt Tennessee just walks away.
Anyway I forgot the US can do nothing good it being powerful. Sorry.