One of the men jailed for the kidnap and torture of Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney has argued against the constitutionality of his conviction by the Special Criminal Court.
Alan Harte (43) was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the non-jury, three-judge Special Criminal Court for committing serious harm and falsely imprisoning Mr Lunney at a yard in Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan, in September 2019.
At the Court of Appeal on Monday, Michael O’Higgins SC, for Harte, said there were two grounds to the appeal: whether it was possible for the Special Criminal Court to deliver a majority verdict and whether that court was entitled not to disclose whether the verdict was unanimous or not.
“If a person is convicted, they should know if it is a unanimous or majority verdict,” Mr O’Higgins said. “When taking someone’s liberty away, it should be done with absolute transparency.”
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He said that a court, when not making rulings, was in effect acting as a juror, so the judges of the Special Criminal Court were engaged in the same exercise as a jury.
“It’s irrelevant who is doing it, they’re carrying out the same task with the same criteria. If the verdict falls below a level, the trial becomes unacceptable,” Mr O’Higgins said.
He said that while there were procedural differences between the courts, once a jury or judges retired to consider their verdict they were in the same category.
Remy Farrell SC, for the State, said a jury trial involved trial by a reasonable cross-section of society, but the Special Criminal Court comprised judges who were not representative of a cross-section of society, so these were completely different concepts.
Mr Justice John Edwards, presiding, said the court would reserve judgment.
